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THE yENEID OF VIRGIL 
BOOKS I. -VI. 



' 



Preparing for Publication 



THE yENEID OF VIRGIL 

BOOKS VII. -XII. 

TRANSLATED IN ENGLISH BLANK VERSE 

BY 

LORD RAVENSWORTH 



W. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London 



Yju^i^ y\«^> } fxJ4._ 



THE ^ENEID OF VIRGIL 



BOOKS I.-VI. 



TRANSLATED IN ENGLISH BLANK VERSE 



BY 



G. K. RICKARDS, M.A. 

1 



AN INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 



WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
EDINBURGH AND LONDON 

MDCCCLXXI 






20462 



( ^SV OF CONgfl^, 
1898. 



I 



PREFACE, 



It is with unfeigned diffidence that I offer to the 
public a new attempt to render the ^Eneid into 
English verse. The world, it may be feared, is 
becoming sated with translations from the classic 
poets, which have of late years issued in extra- 
ordinary numbers from the press. Yet it is 
by means of such a competition of translators 
that the desired result is most likely to be at- 
tained. The version which the general judg- 
ment pronounces to be the best obtains posses- 
sion of the held : the unsuccessful sink into 
oblivion. 

To represent worthily through the medium of 
another language the work of one of the most 
consummate masters of diction in the whole 
range of literature, is a task sufficiently arduous 
in itself; and in the case of the /Eneid a new 

a 



VI PREFACE. 

translator may well feel daunted by the great 
names and high reputation of his predeces- 
sors. The number of English writers who 
have tried their hands on the great Latin epic 
is very considerable, though but few are at the 
present day held in much estimation. With- 
out disparaging other versions, it may fairly be 
said that there are two which any new aspirant 
must regard as his most formidable competitors 
— viz., those of Dryden and of the late Professor 
Conington. 

Each of these works, widely as they differ 
in character and style, unquestionably pos- 
sesses great merit. It would be the height of 
presumption to question the genius of Dryden, 
to whom, though his poetry is not much in ac- 
cordance with the taste of the present day, com- 
mon consent has assigned a prominent place in 
the hierarchy of English poets. But without at 
all disparaging his title to the rank which he 
thus holds, I cannot think either that Dryden's 
translation of the ^Eneid deserves to be placed 
on a level with his own greatest works, or that 
it bears that true resemblance to the original 
which the discriminating admirers of Virgin 
are entitled to expect in a translation. It was 
composed, as we learn from his own account, 
under the depressing conditions of advancing 
years, failing health, and poverty ; it was done 



PREFACE. Vli 

with great rapidity, and in many parts bears 
evident marks of haste and inadvertence. It is 
extremely diffuse in style ; and whatever other 
merits it may have, it certainly does not possess 
that of fidelity to the original. On this latter 
point, indeed, I am not disposed to be over- 
critical — extreme literalness is, in my opinion, 
not to be looked for in a metrical translation. 
If such a work is to give any pleasure to an 
English reader, it must be composed in free, 
natural, and idiomatic English, with which a 
rigid adherence to the verbum verbo reddere rule 
is absolutely incompatible. But Dryden takes 
liberties with his author which even the pre- 
rogative of original genius will not warrant. 
" Pecca fortiter" would seem to be his motto. 
He interpolates much that Virgil never said ; he 
omits still more which he finds it inconvenient 
to translate, slurring over too often the delicate 
touches and fine shades of his master. The 
more critical spirit of the present day would, 
I believe, visit with considerable severity such 
laxity of execution in a modern version. 

But not to dwell on imperfections of detail, 
I confess that my dissatisfaction with Dry- 
den's /Eneid rests on broader grounds. As 
an ardent admirer of Virgil, and deeply im- 
pressed with his peculiar beauties, which have 
been my study and delight for more than forty 



Viil PREFACE. 

years, the great complaint which I have to 
make against Dryden's version is, that, be it 
what else it may, it is not Virgilian. The 
genius and spirit of the English poet had, ac- 
cording to my conception, little affinity with 
those of the Roman — " Magis pares quam simi- 
les." Some, indeed, of the high qualities of the 
poetic intellect were common to both. Force, 
energy, grandeur of style, splendour and copious- 
ness of diction, — in these they were alike ; our 
own countryman perhaps not greatly the inferior. 
But there are other characteristics of Virgil 
wherein he has never been surpassed — perhaps 
never equalled — which constitute his greatest 
charm and his true title to the admiration with 
which his works have been cherished for so many 
centuries, — exquisite taste and purity of style, 
inimitable grace of manner, exhibited alike in ex- 
pression and in reticence, and, above all, a deep 
and genuine tenderness and pathos, that " touch 
of nature" — the "mentem mortalia tangunt" 
— which " makes all hearts kin." The sorrows 
of Creusa, of Andromache, even of Dido in the 
most passionate agonies of her grief, never over- 
step the modesty of nature, yet probe that na- 
ture to its inmost depths. Wonderfully skilled 
and graceful was the hand which traced these 
lineaments, not of Trojan or of Tyrian, but of 
universal human nature. Very different from 



PREFACE. IX 

this was the hand of Dryden. Vigour and 
strength and powerful grasp indeed it had, but 
it lacked the grace and delicacy, the purity 
and tenderness of touch which characterised the 
Roman artist. Hence it is that in reading 
Dryden's version the admirer of Virgil is often 
offended by a coarseness and inelegance of 
thought and language which intrude themselves 
in the most refined and touching passages of the 
original. An incongruous word, an exaggerated 
epithet, an overloaded ornament, is enough to 
mar the whole beauty of a passage. Dryden 
himself evidently felt an imperfect sympathy 
with a writer of a spirit and temperament dis- 
similar from his own. He frankly admits that 
the Muse of Homer was more akin to his genius 
than that of Virgil. On the metre and structure 
of his verse I shall have more to say presently. 

In referring to the recent translation of Pro- 
fessor Conington, I am treading on more deli- 
cate ground. The respect attached to the 
name of that accomplished scholar, and the 
universal regret for the loss -that literature and 
the University of which he was an ornament sus- 
tained by his death, would be sufficient to check 
any rude criticism of his work, even were it 
justly amenable to such treatment. But far 
from seeking to depreciate it, I frankly acknow- 
ledge its high merits. In thorough appreciation 



X PREFACE. 

of the spirit of his author, in scrupulous fidelity 
to the original, in skill and elegance of versifica- 
tion, and in the power of dealing both with the 
lofty and the tender passages, Mr Conington has 
shown, in my opinion, most of the essential qual- 
ities that a translator of Virgil should possess. 
Yet at the same time I am compelled to say 
that the effect of the whole is, according to . my 
apprehension, a shortcoming and a disappoint- 
ment. The beauty of the entire work is marred 
by one irredeemable mistake — the most unfor- 
tunate choice of metre. An epic in octosyllabic 
rhyme ! One of the few grand heroic poems the 
world has produced set to the measure of the 
1 Lord of the Isles ' ! There is, in my judgment, 
but one really suitable English metre for works of 
this class ; yet the heroic couplet of Dryden, the 
stanza of Spenser, or even that dubious modern 
importation, the English hexameter, may have 
some claims to a preference. But to adapt the 
majestic strains of Homer or of Virgil to the 
tripping and jingling measure which is the fitting 
vehicle for Border legends or romaunts of chi- 
valry, is to my mind an irretrievable mistake. 
How are the stately march, the sonorous volume, 
the varied cadences, and finely-adjusted rhythm 
of the great Mantuan to be represented in those 
little monotonous English couplets, even though 
diversified by such variations as Mr Conington, 



PREFACE. XI 

following Sir \V. Scott, has interspersed ? What 
is to become of those grand sententious single 
lines, not unfrequent in the y£neid, which by 
their compact force and fulness stamp them- 
selves like proverbs on the memory ? Such lines 
as the following seem imperatively to demand 
from the translator to be rendered in the same 
spirit and within the same limits, verse for 
verse, as the original : — 

'Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem.' 

' Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.' 

1 Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo.' 

The last line is thus expanded by Dryden — 

'If Jove and Heaven my just desires deny, 
Hell shall the power of Jove and Heaven supply.' 

Thus by Conington — 

'What choice 'twixt under and above? 
If Heaven be firm, the Shades shall move.' 

Virgil's line can scarcely fail to recall one of our 
own epic poet, not, of course, equivalent in 
meaning, yet a striking counterpart in idea and 
expression, and scarcely less grand than the 
Latin — 

' Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.' 

The line in question does not fall within the 
limits of my work, but I would submit that the 
following, though inadequate, comes nearer to 



Xil PREFACE. 

the true rendering than those which I have 
cited — 

Hell will I raise, if Heaven my suit denies. 

The metre of which Professor Conington, so un- 
justly, as I think, to his own powers, made choice, 
is not only ill suited in itself to represent the 
grandeur and stateliness of the ^Eneid, but it 
has had a deteriorating effect on the whole tone 
of the composition. The work throughout is 
pitched in too low a key. The metre has re- 
acted on the diction, which in many passages is 
deficient in elevation and disfigured by modern- 
isms that jar with the classic model. The 
associations connected with the measure have a 
tendency to lower the great heroic drama to 
the level of modern minstrelsy, and the figure 
which rises behind the translator's page is not 
that of Publius Virgilius Maro, but of Walter 
Scott. It would be easy to give illustrations of 
these remarks, but I refrain from doing so lest I 
should seem to disparage one whose remarkable 
powers and acquirements I regard with respect- 
ful admiration. 

In the excellent Preface to his own translation 
of the Iliad, Cowper has pronounced a very de- 
cided opinion against rhymed epics. He says : 
" I will venture to assert that a just trans- 
lation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impos- 



PREFACE. Xlll 

sible. No human ingenuity is equal to the 
task of closing every couplet with sounds homo- 
tonous, expressing at the same time the full 
sense, and only the full sense, of the original." 
To this opinion of a competent critic who had 
himself made ample trial both of blank and 
rhymed verse, I venture to subscribe my humble 
assent. The mantle of rhyme, indeed, covers 
a multitude of faults. The ear, pleased with 
the regularly-recurring sound, gives absolution 
for many faults of diction ; but it cannot, surely, 
be questioned that the exigencies of rhyme form 
an immense impediment to that free choice of 
language which is needed to represent with the 
most exact propriety the sense of the translated 
author. And just in proportion as the merit of 
the original consists in felicity of diction, it is 
essential that the translator should have the 
range of all the resources of his own vocabulary 
without let or hindrance. The ^Eneid is a case 
strictly in point. All critics are agreed that the 
pre-eminent charm of Virgil lies in his exquisite 
beauty of expression. The task imposed on an 
English writer of doing justice to his master in 
this respect is arduous enough ; but it is made 
prodigiously more difficult if, besides the con- 
siderations of gracefulness and propriety of 
language, he is still further restricted in his 
selection by the demands of rhyme. 



XIV PREFACE. 

But worse even, in my opinion, than its effect 
in limiting the free choice of diction, is the ten- 
dency of the rhymed measure to force the com- 
position into the monotonous mould of couplets, 
however repugnant this may be to the move- 
ment and spirit of the original. Couplets, in- 
deed, such as those of Ovid's Elegiacs, may 
well be translated by couplets ; but to com- 
press within these artificial trammels such a 
poem as the yEneid, in which the rhythm and 
the cadences are infinitely diversified — such di- 
versity, indeed, being one of the chief beauties 
of the style — is an error which no ingenuity can 
redeem. Dryden, indeed, seems to have been 
sensible of this incongruity, for he has inter- 
spersed his distichs with a most copious ad- 
mixture of triplets and Alexandrines. But it 
may be questioned whether the remedy he 
adopted was not worse than the disease ; for 
though such variations, sparingly introduced, 
afford an agreeable change ; when used with 
profusion in every page they have an opposite 
effect — harassing to the ear. Indeed, this pecu- 
liarity has been remarked upon by some judi- 
cious critics as one of the chief blots on Dryden's 
composition. Such expedients afford at best a 
partial mitigation of the evil in question ; the 
tendency to close the sense with the couplet, is 
too strong to be resisted. Accordingly, as the 



PREFACE. XV 

original does not naturally fall into this mould, 
it is constrained to do so, and the matter is ac- 
commodated to the metre by expletives and ad- 
ditions of the translator's own. Hence arises the 
besetting fault of translations — that enervating 
diffuseness which may be observed in the work- 
manship of even the most accomplished writers. 
Pope, after rendering faithfully enough the con- 
cluding line of the Iliad — 

1 Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,' 

tacks on, to complete the couplet, a pure in- 
vention of his own — 

* And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade.' 

Johnson, with admirable terseness, gives the 
full sense of Juvenal's lines — 

1 Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat 
Res angusta domi ' — 

1 Slow rises worth by poverty depressed ; ' 

but he is compelled to make out the distich by 
prefixing the gratuitous assertion — 

' This mournful truth is everywhere confessed.' 

Dryden himself has thus diluted the famous 
apostrophe — 

1 Tantaene animis ccelestibus iras ? ' 

' Can heavenly minds such high resentment show ? 
Or exercise their spite in human woe ? ' 



XVI PREFACE. 

The effect of that debilitating expansion of 
the sense which is resorted to in order to eke 
out the couplet, may be further illustrated by 
the following comparison : — 

The first six books of the iEneid 

contain in the original, . . 4755 lines. 

The version of Dryden, . . 6495 „ 

That of Pitt, in the same measure, 6523 „ 

Mr Conington's version contains, 

I believe, about . . . 7300 „ 

The adoption of blank verse has 
enabled me to include the 
whole in .... 5410 ,, 

Mr Conington's lines, it should be remem- 
bered, are the shortest, consisting generally of 
eight, but occasionally of only six syllables each. 
The Latin hexameter averages about fifteen ; 
the English heroic metre — rhyme or blank — ten 
syllables. 

The superior terseness of which blank verse 
is thus shown to be capable, gives it, in my 
opinion, a great advantage over other metres ; 
but this is only one of its superiorities. In the 
hands of our great poets, from Shakespeare and 
Milton to Wordsworth and Shelley, it has been 
proved to be capable of the highest flights of 
sublimity and beauty, and has vindicated its 
title as the noblest of English measures — the 



PREFACE. xvii 

true and worthy vehicle of the epic muse. Its 
freedom, its flexibility, the variety of pauses 
and modulations of rhythm which it admits of, 
mark it as the true counterpart of the classical 
hexameter. It adapts itself to every exigency 
of the composition — the abrupt apostrophe, the 
terse dialogue, the lucid narrative, or the flowing 
description. It may be made, in skilful hands, 
to the full as harmonious as the most exquisitely 
balanced couplets of Pope, and may more than 
compensate to the ear for the absence of the 
rhyming termination by the more subtle melody 
of rhythm. 

The truth of these observations in the ab- 
stract will perhaps not be questioned, but it will 
be objected, that to write blank verse of the 
quality above described requires the skill of a 
great master of the art; whereas in inferior 
hands such charms are lost, and then blank 
verse becomes a dreary blank indeed. I am not 
insensible to the force of such remarks, which, 
indeed, are well calculated to warn humble 
versifiers, like myself, off the ground. Still I 
maintain that if Virgil is to be translated at all 
(which may be a question with some, but the 
thing has been and will be done), he ought to 
be translated in that measure which most readily 
assimilates with his own, and in which an Eng- 
lish writer may represent most truthfully not 



xviii PREFACE. 

only the language, but, what is more important, 
the manner and spirit of the original. The 
rhymed metre, with its inevitable tendency to 
expand and weaken the sense, and its monot- 
onous repetition of balanced periods, is, in my 
estimation, far more wearisome to the ear and 
mind than the unrhymed verse, which, even if 
it be not of the highest order of poetry, may at 
least be terse in style, natural in movement, and 
free from those palling expletives and make- 
weights which are needed to fit the dimensions 
of the unvarying couplet. 

It remains that I should state briefly my views 
as to the obligations of a translator in respect to 
fidelity to the original, and as to the degree in 
which I have found myself able to carry those 
views into execution. 

To render a poem from the original into an- 
other language with absolute literalness I believe 
to be impossible without a total sacrifice of poeti- 
cal effect. Occasional passages may indeed be 
found which fall naturally into corresponding 
phrases, and may be rendered with exact nicety, 
and little, if any, loss of beauty ; but the diversi- 
ties of any two languages make it impossible to 
maintain, throughout a long work, an exact con- 
formity to the diction of the original, without 
sinking into a style which must needs become 
intolerably stiff and repulsive to the reader. 



PREFACE. XIX 

Any metrical translation which in the pursuit 
of exactness sacrifices ease, harmony, and spirit, 
though it may win the applause of scholars 
as a feat of ingenuity, or become, as Johnson 
says of Dr Trapp's version of the yEneid, 
"the clandestine refuge of schoolboys," will 
certainly be pronounced by the bulk of culti- 
vated persons unreadable. Any work that 
justly incurs such a sentence is a mere misap- 
plication of labour. The highest merit of a 
poetical translation I conceive to be, that while 
reflecting all that is really significant in the 
thought and expression, it should, as far as pos- 
sible, " read like an original ; " and even where it 
fails to afford an exact counterpart of the lan- 
guage, or varies the form or structure of the 
sentences, should preserve an accordance with 
the manner and spirit of the author. Such an 
essential likeness I believe it is possible to main- 
tain, even where the genius and idioms of the two 
languages render a more precise approximation 
undesirable, if not impracticable. To translate 
the most elegant of Latin poets into lame or 
Latinised English, w T ould be in my tyes a capital 
fault, less venial than even some degree of 
licence in departing from the text. All transla- 
tion is, in fact, more or less a compromise, in 
which a lesser advantage must often be surren- 
dered to secure a greater. A skilful writer may 



XX PREFACE. 

find himself able so to manipulate the resources 
of his own language as to compensate to the 
original in one passage for his inevitable short- 
comings in another. A bald style, which may 
remind his readers of "the wrong side of the 
tapestry," is at all hazards to be avoided. 
"Whatever else mav be right," as an accom- 
plished labourer* in this field has observed, "a 
stiff translation of an easy and flowing original 
must be wrong." 

How far I have myself fulfilled the obligation 
of faithfulness to the original, which it has been 
my anxious endeavour to observe, it is for others 
to judge. To those critics who possibly may 
think my version less exact than it ought to be, 
I have only to answer, that had I possessed the 
skill to reconcile a more literal adherence to the 
text with what I consider the indispensable 
requisite of ease and freedom of style, I would 
have done so. 

My work appears on the face of it to be 
but a fragment. More imperious demands 
upon my time have obliged me to limit myself 
to the first six books. But happily for me, the 
continuation of the work has been undertaken, 
and already carried far towards completion, 
by another hand. Lord Ravensworth, whose 

* Preface to Translation of the Odyssey, by the late Mr 
Philip Worsley. 



PREFACE. XXI 

name is much better known to the world than 
my own, through his elegant translation of the 
Odes of Horace, and other scholar-like produc- 
tions of his pen, is engaged in translating the 
other six books of the /Eneid in the same 
measure ; and the publication of his volume will, 
I hope, within a short interval, follow mine. For 
my own part, I am fully conscious how far the 
execution falls short of the ideal standard with 
which I set out. Those who know Virgil best will 
most fully appreciate the difficulties of my task. 
But whatever may be the verdict of the public, it 
cannot rob me of that satisfaction which a trans- 
lator who loves his author secures to himself by 
the execution of his work — a more observant 
study and a keener perception of the beauties of 
the original. 

G. K. R. 



ii Cleveland Gardens, Hyde Park, 
June 1 87 1. 



I 



THE iENEID 
BOOK I. 



I-IO] 



THE M N E I D. 



BOOK I. 

Arms and the man I sing who first, from Troy 

s decree, to Italy 
And the Lavinian shores, a wanderer came. 
Sore travail he endured by land and sea 
From adverse Gods, and unrelenting rage 
Of haughty Juno : harassed, too, by war, 
His destined city while he strove to build, 
And raise new altars for his exiled Gods. 
The Latian race, the Alban fathers hence 
Their birth derived — hence Rome's proud fabric 

sprung. i o 

Say, Muse, what dire affront 'gainst Heaven's high 

queen 
A man far-famed for piety consigned 
To roils so vast, such endless round of woes? 



4 THE 2ENEID. [11-33 

Lives there such rancour in Immortal breasts ? 

Facing Italia's coast where Tiber yields 
His waters to the main, yet far removed, 
Offshoot of Tyre, a city rose of old, 
Plenteous in wealth, in War's stern schooling trained ; 
Beyond all earthly seats by Juno prized : 
Not Samos dear as Carthage ; here her arms, 20 

Her battle-car was here : this favoured realm, 
Mother and queen of subject-lands to be, 
Did Fate permit, her sovereign will designed. 
But legends told her of a tribe to spring 
From Dardan loins, whose sons unborn should lay 
Proud Carthage low ; by that wide-conquering race 
Should Libya fall : thus Destiny ordained. 
Such fate Saturnia feared ; remembered, too, 
Her ancient feud with Troy for Argos waged ; 
Nor in her bosom had long-festering wrongs 30 

Yet ceased to rankle — deeply there were stored 
The Phrygian shepherd's judgment, the keen pang 
Of slighted charms, Electra's hated brood, 
And Ganymede by lawless love preferred. 
Such wrongs resenting, Ilion's outcast sons, 
By Grecian sword and fierce Achilles spared. 
Far from the Latian coasts the Goddess chased — 
Full many a year they roved, impelled by Fate, 
From sea to sea ; so toilsome was the task 



34-52] BOOK I. 5 

To found the mighty edifice of Rome — 40 

Now from Trinacria's fast-receding shore, 
With sails full set, the Trojan mariners 
Steered gaily o'er the deep, their burnished prows 
Cleaving the yeasty foam ; when Juno, still 
Nursing her livelong anguish, with herself 
Fierce converse held : " My counsels must I own 
Discomfited ? my efforts foiled to guard 
Italia's frontiers from this Dardan lord ? 
Fate baulks my purpose ! What ! could Pallas burn 
The Grecian fleet and drown their helpless crews, 50 
For one transgressor's fault, the unhallowed deed 
Of mad Oileus ? Hurling from the clouds 
The Thunderer's fiery bolts, she wrecked their ships, 
Upturned the watery depths ; the stricken chief, 
From his scorched breast disgorging flames, she caught 
With whirlwind blast and on a rock impaled. 
While I, Jove's spouse and sister — I who tread 
Heaven's courts a queen — with one poor race thus long 
Wage bootless war ! Who now will homage yield 
To Juno, or with incense heap her shrine?' 7 60 

Such thoughts revolving in her fiery breast, 
Forth to a region wild, ^Eolia named, 
Birthplace of storms and womb of mighty blasts, 
The Goddess speeds : there in his mountain cave 
King iEolus the struggling winds controls — 



6 THE iENEID. [53-76 

Prisoned in sunless vaults and curbed with chains. 
Fiercely the captives chafe and beat their bars 
With sullen moan. On high the monarch sits : 
His sceptre sways, and calms their furious mood — 
Such check removed, full soon the rebel blasts, 70 
In wild tornado mingling earth, sea, air, 
Would sweep the spheres. Forecasting this, the Sire 
In caverns deep immured them, heaped o'erhead 
A towering pile of rocks, and o'er them set 
A king enthroned, whose firmly-balanced sway 
Might curb their wrath or loose the reins at will. 
Him Juno thus in suppliant guise addressed : 

1 Great iEolus, by sovereign Jove ordained 
To stir the waves with tempest, or allay 
Their boisterous surge, a race by me abhorred 80 
Steers o'er the Tuscan billows, and transports 
Troy and her vanquished Gods to Italy. 
Launch now thy blasts, and whelm them in the deep ; 
Or scatter far and wide their barks, and toss 
The wanderers o'er the main. Seven lovely nymphs 
Twice numbered form my train — of these the flower, 
Dei'opeia, fairest of the fair, 
Guerdon of duteous service, shall be thine, 
In wedlock bands indissolubly joined, 
To bless thy home with beauteous progeny.' 90 

Then answered y£olus : ' 'Tis thine, O Queen ! 



77-ioo] BOOK I. 7 

To give thy wishes utterance ; mine to hear 
The mandate and obey : this bounded realm, 
The favour of great Jove, my place assigned 
At banquets of the Gods, and power supreme 
O'er winds and tempests — all to thee I owe.' 

This said, with spear reversed the mount he smote. 
An outlet found, the winds, like serried host, 
Rush forth and sweep with hurricane the earth : 
On ocean next, South, East, and blustering West 
Swoop down, convulse its mighty depths, and roll 101 
Huge breakers to the shore : far off are heard 
The creaking cordage and the seaman's cry. 
Night blackens o'er the main : the Trojan crews 
Xor sea nor sky discern : the thunder peals 
On high, the lightnings glare, and all around 
Appear the dreadful presages of death. 
With terror chilled, ./Eneas scarce supports 
His tottering limbs ; he lift his hands to heaven ; 
Then with deep sigh, 'O blest! thrice blest!' he cries, 
' To whom, in sight of Ilion and their sires, in 

Was given the glorious privilege to die ! 
O Diomed ! mightiest of thy Grecian peers, 
Why was the fate denied me, by thy hand 
On Dardan plains to die, where Hector's life 
Achilles pierced, where huge Sarpedon sleeps 
In death, and Simois down his cumbered flood 



8 THE .ENEID. [101-120 

Rolls scutcheons, helms, and corpses of the brave ? ' 

Full on his sail, ere yet his words were spent, 
Burst in its might the furious northern gale, 120 

Tossing the brine to heaven, and crashed the oars : 
Her prow forced round, the vessel's side is turned 
Broad to the tempest ; then comes swelling on 
A pile of waters, mountainous, abrupt — 
Some on the billow's crest aloft are borne, 
Some plunged beneath, where ocean's bed lies bare, 
'Twixt yawning waves disclosed : the maddened surge 
Flies mixed with drifted sand. Three hapless barks 
Caught by the southern blast, on rocks unseen — 
(A ghastly ridge emerging 'mid the waves, 130 

By Tuscan seamen " Altars" called) — are hurled; 
Three more — ah ! piteous sight ! — by eastern gale 
'Mid shallows flung and shattered on the reefs, 
Imbedded in the treacherous quicksand lie : 
One, manned by stout Orontes and his crew 
Of Lycian oarsmen, in ^Eneas' sight, 
A mighty wave o'ertopping strikes astern ; 
Headlong the steersman falls; the ungoverned bark, 
Thrice round and round in eddying current whirled, 
Is sucked within the ravening whirlpool's jaws. 140 
Lone swimmers, here and there, amid the waves, 
Spars, weapons, treasures snatched from Troy, appear. 
Thy gallant ship, Ilioneus, and thine, 



121-141] BOOK I. 9 

Achates, with the barks that Abas bore, 
And old Aletes, to the impetuous flood 
Their gaping sides and shattered timbers yield. 

Meanwhile great Neptune, sore amazed, beholds 
The turmoil of the sea, the winds let loose, 
And ocean from its nether depths upturned. 
His head majestic lifting o'er the surge, 150 

He sees the navy of ^Eneas driven 
Far o'er the watery waste, the Trojan crews 
Bewildered in the wrack of sea and sky. 
Xor did malicious Juno's wiles escape 
Her brothers ken : Eurus and Zephyrus, 
Straight to his presence called, he thus upbraids : 

1 What mean ye, Winds, on your ethereal birth 
Presuming, heedless of my sovereign will, 
To mingle heaven and earth in wild affray, 
And raise this mighty turmoil in my realm? 160 

Whom I — but first to smoothe the ruffled waves 
Is need more urgent — such misdeeds henceforth 
Shall cost you dear. Begone ! and to your king 
This message bear : Not to his sway, but mine, 
The liquid empire and the trident dread 
Hath Fate assigned ; his are the rock-bound caves 
Where dwell your whirlwinds — in his own bleak halls 
Let JEolus disport him as he will, 
Lord of the gloomy prison-house of storms/ 



10 THE 2ENEID. [142-165 

He spoke, and ere he ceased the waves were stilled ; 
The dark clouds chased, the sunlit sky restored : 171 
Cymothoe and Triton joining hands, 
Thrust from the jagged rocks the stranded barks ; 
Himself the trident wields, and clears the way 
Through massy sandbanks, and allays the storm, 
Breasting the billows in his noiseless car, 
As when in some vast crowd Sedition goads 
The rabble crew to fury ; brands and stones, 
As rage finds weapons meet, at random fly : 
Then should some patriot grave for worth revered 
Perchance be seen, the factious din subsides, 181 
Each voice is hushed, all ears are strained to hear ; 
He with sage speech their angry passion calms, — 
So sinks in charmed repose the tranquil deep, 
As though the cleared expanse with loosened rein 
Guides his unflagging steeds the Ocean King. 
The wearied sons of Troy, intent to gain 
The nearest coast, alight on Libya's strand. 
Deep in a sheltering cove an island forms 
A land-locked haven, with projecting arms 190 

Breaking the tide, whose parted waves subside 
Amid the winding inlets of the shore. , 
Huge rocks enclose the cove ; a giant cliff 
On either side towers heavenward, at whose feet 
The waters sleep becalmed ; above them frowns 



i66-iS6] BOOK I. II 

A grove of quivering leaves and darksome shade : 
In front, the impending rocks o'erarch a :ave, 

The Naiad's haunt, within whose deep rec-ss 
Are limpid springs and seats ::' living stone. 

No hawser there the sea-worn galleys need, 20c 

No anchors gripe to hold them where the; ri le 

.-:: barks alone of all his shattered fleet 
/Eneas harbours here : his jaded crews. 
Panting for land, spring eagerly ashore. 
And on the beach their reeking limbs extend. 
Then first Achates striking from the flint 
The latent fire, with leafy fuel 

Nursed the faint spark and caught the bursting flame : 
The exhausted seamen from the ships bring forth 
Their stores of brine-soaked corn ; some bruise with 
stones 210 

ed grain, some roast it in the flame-. 
Meanwhile JEneas from a rocky height 
le prospect seaward takes, if haply thence 
The Phrygian galleys may be spied — the ships 
Of Anthem or of Capys. or the baige 
That bears Caicus' ertsirr. a: the stern. 
No sail the ofrmg shows. Along the beach 
Three lordly stags are pacing, in whose rear 
Follows the dappled herd ; far down the dale 
In lensrthened line they graze ^Eneas stands 222 



12 THE /ENEID. [187-207 

At point of vantage, armed with bow and shafts 

Which good Achates for his chieftain bore : 

And first, the leaders of the troop, to heaven 

Tossing their antlered heads, his arrows slew ; 

Then game of lesser mark — till, galled with darts, 

Back to their covert fled the routed herd ; 

Nor ceased his raid, till on the plain were stretched 

Seven goodly victims, for each ship a deer. 

These to the port returned the chief divides 

With his own crews, then brings the wine-casks forth 

Which, ere they left Trinacria's friendly shore, 231 

The good Acestes on his guests bestowed, 

A parting gift. Such boon ^Eneas gave, 

And with brave words their drooping spirits cheered : 

' Dear friends, well versed in suffering ! tried of old 

By ills surpassing all ye now endure, 

These, too, by favour of the Gods, shall end : 

The ravening jaws of Scylla and the crags, 

Pierced with her yells — the Cyclops' rocky den, — 

Such terrors have ye braved : then quail not now, 240 

Nor let base fear unman you. Time may come 

When griefs like these yield after-thoughts of joy. 

Through many a peril, many a sore mischance, 

For Latium are we bound : there Fate assures 

Rest from our toils — Troy's ancient reign restored. 

Quit you like men, for glorious meed reserved.' 



208-230] BOOK I. 13 

Such words his thoughts belied — the heroic mien 
Breathed hope, but care lay heavy at his heart. 
Promptly the Trojans for the feast prepare : 
Some deftly flay the quarry, some divide 250 

The quivering limbs, and on rude spits impale ; 
Some sling the brazen caldrons o'er the flame, — 
Then, stretched along the turf, with venison good 
And old Sicilian wine their strength repair. 
The meal at length despatched, and hunger quelled, 
They muse in long sad converse on the fate 
Of their lost comrades, poised 'twixt hope and fear — 
Uncertain, or to deem them living still, 
Or in some desperate strait beyond the reach 
Of human voice or aid. His own dear friends 260 
^Eneas most deplores — Orontes bold, 
And Amycus by cruel fortune lost ; 
Brave Gyas, Lycus, and Cloanthus brave. 

Now was there pause awhile, when from high heaven 
The Omnipotent with downward glance surveyed 
The earth outstretched, and seas where navies ride : 
O'er many a peopled land his glance he threw, 
But fixed his eyesintent on Libya's shore : 
Him, gravely brooding on imperial cares 
With saddened mien, her radiant eyes suffused, 
Venus addressed : ' Thou who dost reign for aye 271 
O'er Gods and men, whose thunders awe the world, 



14 THE ;ENEID. [231-253 

What crime of my ^Eneas or of Troy 
Hath moved thy wrath, that every coast is barred 
Lest that worn remnant gain their Latian home ? 
Surely thy faith was pledged, that from the stock 
Of Teucer should be born, in years to come, 
The heroic Roman race, foredoomed to spread 
O'er sea and land their empire uncontrolled. 
How is thy purpose changed? In this I sought 280 
Solace for Troy's sad fall and all her woes — 
Thus balanced ill with good, and fate with fate. 
But lo ! the same harsh fortune still pursues 
That ill-starred race : shall such afflictions find 
No rest, dread king ? Antenor, from the host 
Of Grecian foes escaped, could pass unharmed 
Th' Illyrian gulf, Liburnia's hostile realm, 
And cross the stream that gives Timavus birth, 
Where from nine 1 rocky outlets headlong leaps 
The impetuous flood, and thunders down the vale. 
Yet there fair Padua's towers the adventurer raised, 
Gave to his band of exiles home and name, 292 

His Trojan arms laid by, and reigns in peace : 
We, heirs of heavenly mansions, thine own seed, 
Our ships — oh ! cruel wrong ! — by tempest lost, 
By one relentless foe betrayed, are driven 
Far from Italia's shores ! Shall pious deeds 
Meet such reward ? is thus our realm restored ? ; 



254-279] BOOK I. 1 5 

With smile indulgent, and that brow serene 
That calms the storm and clears the turbid sky, 300 
Kissing her roseate lips, great Jove replied : 
' Daughter, dismiss thy fears ; the sure decrees 
Pledged to thy sons of old stand unreversed \ 
The city of thy hopes — Lavinium's towers — 
Thine eyes shall see ; these starry seats receive 
Thy high-souled chieftain to his destined home. 
No change my purpose knows \ to soothe thy care 
More will I tell, and further yet unfold 
Fate's hidden scroll. In Latium shall thy son 
Long conflict wage, rebellious tribes subdue, 310 

Walled cities build, and savage manners tame, 
Till three full circling years have seen him reign 
Triumphant o'er the vanquished Rutuli. 
Next young Ascanius, now lulus named 
(Twas Ilus once, while Ilion reigned secure), 
For thrice ten years his father's throne shall fill, 
To Alba from Lavinium shall transfer 
His empire's seat, and build his stronghold there. 
Three centuries shall the Dardan lineage rule, 
Till Ilia, queen and priestess, at one birth 320 

Twin sons to Mars shall bear, and Romulus, 
Wolf-nursed, and glorying in his tawny garb, 
Shall rear his walls and found his martial State, 
Rome, from her founder named. To her I grant 



1 6 THE iEXEID. [280-298 

Dominion unconfined by space or time — 

A boundless, endless reign. Dread Juno, too, 

Whose wrathful mood earth, sea, and heaven embroils, 

By gentler counsels swayed, with me shall join 

To cherish and uphold the Imperial race, 

Lords of the flowing gown. This stands decreed — 

Heirs of Assaracus, long ages hence, 331 

On Phthia and Mycenae shall impose 

The conqueror's yoke, and lay proud Argos low. 

Lo ! Caesar, sprung from Trojan stock renowned, 

From his great sire lulus, Julius named, 

Shall compass earth with conquest, heaven with fame : 

Him shalt thou welcome to these blest abodes, 

In time predestined, rich with Orient spoils ; 

To him shall altars rise and vows be paid. 

Now Peace succeeds to Discord's iron rule. 340 

And venerable Faith and Vesta pure, 

And Rome's twin founders, with benignant laws 

Control the world. With bolts and bands of steel 

The gates of War are closed : the Fiend within, 

Stretched on his pile of bristling arms, his limbs 

With gyves of brass encircled hundredfold, 

Gnashes his blood-stained jaws, and yells with rage.' 

Thus Jove j and at his nod swift Mercury wings 
His downward flight, on gracious errand sent, 
Lest jealous Carthage 'gainst the stranger tribe 350 



299-320] BOOK I. 17 

Should close her gates — the queen, unwarned of fate, 
Drive forth the wanderers. Through the void expanse, 
With well-poised pinions, as with oars impelled, 
The swift-winged God descends on Libya's shore. 
There with prompt skill he tames to gentle mood 
The rugged Punic souls — with pity thrills 
Fair Dido's bosom for her Phrygian guests. 

But good ^Eneas, burthened all the night 
With anxious thoughts, at earliest dawn arose, 
Intent to search the coast, and for his crews 360 

Sure tidings gain — unknowing to what shore 
The winds had borne them 3 if by men possessed, 
Or savage beasts ; for waste the region seemed. 
Deep in a sheltered cove, o'erhung with rocks, 
And with dark foliage screened, the ships are moored \ 
Himself with brave Achates sallied forth, 
Two steel-tipped javelins quivering in his hand, 
When lo ! before him, in the forest glade, 
His heavenly mother stood. In form and garb 
She seemed a Spartan virgin, armed for chase, 370 
Or like that Thracian maid Harpalyce, 
Tiring fleet coursers down with foot that mocked 
The speed of eastern gales. A light bow hung 
From her fair shoulders ; huntress-like, her hair 
She gave the winds to toy with ; bare her knee, 
Her flowing tunic with a loop confined. 

vol. 1. B 



1 8 THE .EXEID. [321-340 

She greets them first : ' Ho ! gallants, have ye seen 

Aught of a sister of our sylvan train 

Roaming the woods, her quiver round her slung, 

In tawny lynx-skin clad — or in full cry 380 

Urging with hot pursuit the panting boar?' 

Thus Venus spoke, and thus her son replied : 
' Nought have we seen nor heard in all the glade 
Of thy fair sisters. O ! whatever the name 
That best befits thee — for no earthly voice 
E'er breathed, nor mortal visage beamed like thine ; 
Some Goddess surely thou, or of the race 
Of Nymphs, or sister of the Delian God — 
Pity, whoe'er thou art, our woeful plight ; 
Say in what spot of earth, beneath what sky — 390 
By winds and waves we know not whither driven, — 
Bewildered and forlorn we wander here : 
Then, slain by grateful votaries, at thy shrine 
Shall many a victim bleed. 5 ' Nay, gentle sirs,' 
Venus replied, ' the homage that ye pay 
Exceeds my due : 'tis thus we Tyrian maids, 
Armed for the chase, our quivers sling ; thus high 
Our crimson buskins bind. The land ye see 
Is Punic soil — Agenor s sons dwell here ; 
But Libya's tribes, a warrior-race untamed, 400 

The frontier hold : a queen of Tyrian blood, 
Fair Dido, rules the land ; from Tyre she fled, 



341-364] BOOK L 19 

Forced by a brother's crime — a long dark tale 

Of wrong, but briefly may the sum be told : 

Young Dido to Sichaeus was espoused, 

A rich Phoenician lord, by that fond heart 

Too dearly loved. A maiden to his arms 

She came, with nuptial rites and omens fair \ 

But on the Tyrian throne her brother sat, 

Pygmalion, basest of his kind. A feud 410 

Betwixt the kinsmen grew ; with lust of gold 

Possessed, and mindless of his sister's love, 

The king his unsuspecting brother slew, 

With foulest treachery, at the altar's side. 

Awhile the crime he screened, her love-sick mind 

Amusing with fond hopes and tales untrue. 

But to that widowed couch in vision came 

The pale, sad ghost of her unburied lord, 

Bared his red wounds, the hideous deed disclosed, 

The reeking poniard and the blood-stained shrine ; 

Then bade her flee from that polluted land, 421 

And showed, to aid her flight, uncounted hoards 

Of gold and silver, in the earth concealed. 

The queen prepares for exile ; rallies all 

Whom dread of that foul tyrant or fierce hate 

Leagued in her cause ; the ships, equipped for sea, 

Are seized, and freighted with Pygmalion's gold. 

Their sails are set : a woman leads the way ; 



20 THE iENEID. [365-385 

Straight to these shores they came, where now ye see 
Young Carthage rising with her infant towers ; 430 
A landing gained, one hide of Libyan soil 
They bought — hence Byrsa named. But, strangers, 

now 
Declare from whence ye came, and whither bound? ' 

With voice of grief, and sigh that rent his breast, 
^Eneas thus replied : ' O maid divine ! 
Might time suffice to hear from end to end 
The eventful tale of our long pilgrimage, 
Ere evening shades descending shroud the sky : 
We, sons of ancient Troy (if e'er that name 
Hath reached thine ears), storm-tost on every sea, 
By stress of winds were drifted on these shores. 441 
That Dardan chief am I, whom fame to heaven 
Extols— ^Eneas named. Our rescued Gods 
My ships from Ilium bear ; with highest Jove 
By race allied, I seek a promised home 
In Italy, my own ancestral soil. 
With twice ten ships, fulfilling Fate's behest, 
And guided by my heavenly mother's hand, 
I sailed from Phrygians coast ; scarce seven remain, 
Rent by the waves and shattered by the gale : 450 
By Europe spurned, from Asia driven, I range 
These Libyan wilds, unfriended and unknown.' 

Thus far the chief; yet scarce could Venus brook 



5S6-410] BOOK I. 21 

Her son's complaint so long, but thus broke forth : 

' Whoe'er thou art, not unbeloved, I ween, 

Of heavenly powers, to Carthage art thou come. 

Dismiss thy fears : to Dido's palace gates 

Go boldly on, so surely shalt thou find 

Thy ships unharmed, thy gallant comrades saved, 

Else was my skill in augury taught in vain. 460 

Behold yon sportive group, twelve stately swans, 

Whom Jove's fierce eagle, swooping from the sky, 

Fluttered awhile ; these now in lengthened file 

Light on the shore or hover ere they light ; 

As, downward borne, they circle in mid air, 

With loudly-flapping wings and joyous cry, — 

So thy swift galleys, all with crews unscathed, 

Sweep into port full sail, or anchored ride. 

Then forward lies thy path; go boldly on.' 

Aside the Goddess stepped, but as she turned 470 
A roseate tint her beauteous neck suffused, 
Ambrosial odours from her locks distilled, 
Her robe flowed downward to her feet ; her step 
The Deity betrayed. His mother known, 
The chief with fond reproach her steps pursued : 
' Ah cruel ! hast thou mocked with vain disguise 
Thy son once more ? — denied the boon he craves, 
Hand joined to hand, and tones of love unfeigned ? ' 
Then onward to the walls the comrades sped ; 



22 THE iENEID. [41 1-432 

But Venus, as they went, around them threw 480 

A mantle of impenetrable cloud, 

That none should see nor cross them in their path, 

With idle quest distract them or delay. 

Herself to Paphos wings her flight sublime, 

Scene of her dearest joys, and that proud fane 

Where incense from a hundred altar-fires 

And flowers unfading load with scents the air. 

Meanwhile the chiefs, their march in haste pursued, 
Ascend a lofty hill whose beetling brow 
O'erlooks the city, and confronts its towers. 490 

In silent wonder wrapt ^Eneas sees 
Where huts once stood majestic structures rise; 
The streets, the gates, the throng and hum of men : 
The Tyrians o'er their tasks with ardour bend — 
Some build the rampart walls, or to the fort 
Upheave the quarried stone, or trace the site 
Of stately mansions, and with trench enclose; 
These frame the rules of justice, those ordain 
The civic dignities and senate grave ; 
Some scoop the harbour, or foundations lay 500 

Of spacious theatre with columns huge 
Hewn from the rock to grace the future stage; — 
So ply the bees, in summer's flowery prime, 
Their round of labour : forth to sunny meads 
Lead the young swarms, or pack their liquid spoil, 



433-455] BOOK I. 23 

And store with luscious nectar-juice their cells ; 
Or ease the home-bound carriers of their load, 
Or chase with fierce assault the laggard drones — 
Fast speeds the work ; thyme scents the honied store. 
* Ah ! happy builders!' wondering as he views 510 
The Tyrian towers ascend, ^Eneas sighs ; 
Veiled in his garb of mist he walks unseen, 
And glides a stranger through the unconscious crowd. 

A grove delightsome with exuberant shade 
Within the city stood ; it marked the spot 
Where first the Punic rovers, tempest-driven, 
Inspired by Juno, from the earth exhumed 
A fiery courser's head — auspicious sign 
Of wealth and prowess to that favoured race 
Through years unnumbered. Here the Tyrian queen 
A stately temple to her Goddess raised, 521 

Famed for rich gifts, for Juno's presence more — 
Whose gates of brass a lofty terrace crowned, 
On brazen posts with burnished hinges hung. 
Here first ^Eneas from his loa<i of care 
Unlooked-for solace found ; his sinking heart 
Was cheered, and hopes of brighter fortune dawned : 
For while beneath the spacious dome he waits 
The queen's approach, in pensive mood the while 
Pondering the fortunes of that infant State, 530 

And marking all around the wondrous feats 



24 THE iENEID. [456-476 

Of patient labour and ingenious skill — 
Lo ! on the walls depicted, scenes appear 
Of world-wide fame — the battle-fields of Troy ; 
King Priam and the sons of Atreus twain, 
And fierce Achilles, stern to friend and foe. 
Pausing awhile to weep : ' Alas!' he cried, 
' What land, Achates, have not Irion's woes 
Filled with their fame? Behold the king! his worth 
E'en here a tribute finds, his fate a tear, 540 

And sorrows touch the common heart of man : 
Fear not, our fame may yet our safety prove.' 
Then o'er the painted semblance, lost in thought, 
The hero mused, while freely flowed his tears ; 
For here the Grecian w T arriors round the forts 
Fled, chased by Troy ; there plumed Achilles pressed 
Hard on the Phrygian rear ; the snow-white tents 
Of Rhesus next a bloody scene recalled, 
How ruthless Diomed at dead of night 
Butchered the slumbering guards and snatched his 
prize, 550 

Ere time was given those fiery steeds to graze 
The Dardan plain or drink Scamandefs stream : 
Next Troilus is seen — unhappy boy — 
By great Achilles overmatched in fight — 
His arms are lost — flung backward from his car, 
The affrighted coursers whirl him o'er the plain — 



477-497] BOOK I. 25 

His hands still clutch the reins, his long hair trails 

In dust, his spear reversed imprints the ground. 

Lo ! to the fane of Pallas sore displeased, 

In suppliant sadness, with dishevelled hair, 560 

The Trojan dames in slow procession move j 

The hallowed robe they bear, and beat their breasts. 

Fixed on the ground her stern averted eyes 

The Goddess keeps. See ! Hector's mangled corpse 

Thrice round the Phrygian ramparts dragged in 

scorn 
Achilles sells for gold ! With throes of grief 
Convulsed, JEneas sees those relics dear — 
The arms, the car, the very form he loved, 
And Priam's helpless hands for mercy raised. 
There, too, amid the press of Grecian knights 570 
Himself the chief discerns, and there the hosts 
Of Orient birth, and swarthy Memnon's arms. 
Fierce as in life, Penthesilea leads 
Her Amazonian chivalry to war, 
With shields like crescent-moon ; herself begirt 
With zone of gold that bares one breast to view, 
Glows in the battle-charge with martial fire, 
And braves, a warrior-maid, the shock of men. 
While thus the wondrous sight ^Eneas held 
Chained to one spot, in mute amazement lost; 580 
In stately guise with all her courtly train 



26 THE ^ENEID. [49S-516 

The Tynan princess to the temple came, 

In beauty passing fair — not lovelier seems 

Diana, as she leads the sylvan dance, 

Encircled by her train of Oread nymphs. 

By swift Eurotas, or on Cynthian heights ; 

Her quiver round her slung, the huntress-queen 

Majestic o'er each sister Goddess towers ; 

Latona's silent heart is thrilled with joy. 

So by her beauteous presence Dido shed 590 

Sweet influence round, on queenly cares intent, 

And gracious forethought for her infant realm. 

Within the gates, beneath the vaulted roof 

Of Juno, with her guards of state around. 

She sat enthroned ; there to her people laws 

Dispensed with equal hand : their several tasks 

By lot or just decree to all assigned. 

A sudden concourse now ^Eneas sees, 
And lo ! amid the throng his comrades lost — 
Antheus, Sergestus, and Cloanthus brave, 600 

With many a Teucrian captain, whose stout bark. 
Driven from its course, the hurricane had flung 
On alien shores. Twixt hope and fear perplexed. 
The chiefs beheld ; their comrades to embrace 
They sorely longed, but wonder held them bound 
In mute constraint ; within their misty shroud 
Invisible they wait, surmising much 



517-540] BOOK I. 27 

What fortune strange their friends had hither brought 
Where lay their ships — for each had envoys sent 
Safe-conduct to implore, and succour claim. 610 

To Dido's presence led, and audience given, 
Their chief Ilioneus with tranquil mien 
His message told : ' Great queen, by Jove ordained 
To found this new-born city, and reclaim 
By thy just sway the stubborn tribes around ; 
We, hapless Trojans, tossed from shore to shore, 
Implore thy succour — from malignant flames 
Protect our ships, our guiltless people spare. 
We come not, we, to waste your Libyan homes, 
Or bear your spoils to sea : such daring deeds 620 
111 suit the humbled pride of vanquished men. 
A land there is, by Greeks Hesperia named, 
For martial deeds and teeming soil renowned 
Of yore : ^Enotrian settlers held it once ; 
Now, fame reports — from Italus the chief — 
Tis named Italia : thither were we bound 
When wild Orion, herald of the storm, 
From ocean rose ; then boisterous southern gales 
On hidden reefs, through waves that swept their 

decks, 
Our vessels drove. A helpless few, scarce saved, 630 
We gained your shores. What ruthless horde is this, 
That thrusts from their inhospitable coast 



28 THE yENEID. [541-563 

The shipwrecked crews, and greets them with the 

sword ? 
If mortal arms -ye fear not, yet believe 
That Gods protect the just and punish wrong. 
^Eneas was our king — more honoured none 
For pious deeds, none braver in the field ; 
If, haply spared, that soul heroic breathes 
This vital air, nor sleeps in death's grim shade ; 
With him in rivalry of generous deeds 640 

Fear not to vie. To us there yet remain 
Sicilians friendly towns, where, sprung from Troy, 
Acestes, our illustrious kinsman, reigns. 
We ask but leave to hale our ships ashore, 
Rent their shattered timbers from the woods, 
And shape new oars. If fate permits to seek 
The Italian shore, with chief and crews restored, 
Then— ho for Italy ! If all be lost— 
If 'neath the Libyan waves thy loved remains, 
Dear sire, and young lulus' hope, lie whelmed — 650 
Then to Sicilian ports, whence late we sailed, 
To good Acestes and his proffered home 
Our barks we steer.' So spake Ilioneus, 
Then shouted in applause his comrades all. 

Briefly, with downcast look, the queen replied : 
' Take courage, Trojans, and dismiss your fears ; 
The struggling weakness of an infant state 



564-5SS] BOOK I. 29 

Warns me to guard my coasts with jealous heed : 

Who has not heard of Troy? her gallant deeds, 

Her valorous chiefs — ^Eneas and his race — 660 

And that great war that set the world aflame ? 

Yon sun, whose chariot wanns our Libyan clime, 

Shines not on souls so dead to noble deeds. 

Whate'er your course — to fair Hesperia's fields, 

Or land of Eryx, by Acestes ruled — 

My wealth shall aid you, and my escort guard. 

Or would ye share my realm and settle here ; 

Lay up your ships — this city shall be yours : 

Trojan and Tyrian shall be one with me. 

And much I wish the self-same wind had borne 670 

Your chief ^Eneas here ! To scour the coasts 

Shall trusty guides be sent, and straightly charged 

To search the Libyan borders far and wide, 

If lost in woods he strays, or haunts of men.' 

Fired by her words, the heroes yearned to burst 
The encircling cloud, and first Achates spoke : 

6 How say'st thou, Goddess-born? Lo ! all are saved, 
Our comrades, ships, restored ; ,one only lost 
Whom our sad eyes beheld engulfed in waves — 
All else thy mother's truthful voice foretold.' 680 

Scarce had he spoken, ere the mantling mist 
Severed in twain and melted in thin air. 
Bathed in transparent light ^Eneas stood, 



30 THE iENEID. [589-611 

In shape and visage God-like, for to him 

His heavenly mother lent youth's glowing bloom, 

Ambrosial locks and pleasure-beaming eyes — 

Such sheen as ivory's polished surface yields, 

Or Parian stone or silver chased with gold. 

Then to the astonished crowd he spake, and thus 

Addressed the queen : ' Tis I, whom late ye sought — 

zEneas, chief of Troy. O, thou whose heart 691 

Alone could bleed for Ilion's matchless woes, 

Could succour lend — thy home, thy kingdom share 

With us, sad relics of the Grecian sword, 

Of all bereft, by all disasters tried 

Of flood and field ! — not we, nor all who bear 

O'er the wide world dispersed, the Dardan name, 

Can pay thee homage due. The Gods above — 

If Gods regard the virtuous and the just, 

If conscience and the self-approving mind 700 

Can aught avail — shall full requital yield. 

Happy the age that bare thee ! Happy they 

Who gave such fair and gracious offspring birth ! 

While rivers roll their waters to the sea, 

While flitting shadows chequer mountain- sides, 

While heaven shall feed her starry lamps, thy name 

Renown and praise shall bear, whate'er abode 

Our fate assigns.' This said, ^Eneas greets 

His comrades — with right hand Ilioneus, 



612-633] BOOK I. 3 1 

With left Sergestus grasps; Cloanthus next, 710 

And Gyas brave. 

The queen, amazed to see 
The apparition strange, nor less to hear 
His moving tale, exclaims : ' O Goddess-born ! 
What demon of misfortune haunts thy steps ? 
What power impelled thee to these rugged shores ? 
Art thou that famed ^Eneas, whom, 'tis said, 
Immortal Venus to Anchises bare 
By Simois, Phrygian stream ? I mind me well 
How Teucer, exiled from his native coasts, 
To Sidon came, and aid from Belus sought 720 

New realms to gain. King Belus then had laid 
Rich Cyprus waste, and bowed it to his sway. 
Thence to my youthful ears Troy's piteous fate, 
Thy name, and Graecia's chiefs familiar grew — 
E'en Teucer, though a foe, extolled the race, 
Well pleased to link his name with Dardan sires. 
Then welcome, gallant strangers, to my halls ; 
I too, by adverse fortune long pursued 
With troubles sore, at last found refuge here, 
Taught by my own to feel for others' woe.' 730 

Thus speaking, Dido through the palace gates 
Conducts her guest, then to the Gods proclaims 
High festival ; nor yet the absent crews 
Forgets, but sends rich largess to the ships — 



32 THE ^ENEID. [634-656 

Of steers a score, a hundred bristly swine, 

Ewes with their fatling lambs a hundred more, 

With cheer unstinted of the genial God. 

And now the palace courts with regal pomp 

Are garnished, and the halls, for banquet decked, 

Display their draperies wrought with curious skill 740 

And rich with Tyrian dye. The tables groan 

'Neath massive plate, that bears embossed in gold 

The heroic feats of Punic sires, bequeathed 

By long tradition since the race began. 

Meanwhile ^Eneas, whose parental heart 
With care unresting dwelt upon his child, 
In haste Achates to the ships despatched 
To bear Ascanius tidings, and the boy 
To Dido's court convey. Rich presents, too, 
From ruined Troy preserved he bids them send — 750 
A gold-embroidered mantle, and a veil 
Inwoven with Acanthus, saffron-dyed, 
To Helen by her mother Leda given ; 
From Argos brought when that adulterous bride, 
On lawless nuptials bent, to Ilion came ; 
A sceptre, too, which fair Ilione, 
First-born of Priam's daughters, loved to wield ; 
A necklace strung with pearls, and coronet 
With gems and gold, in double circles twined, — 
Such mandate to the ships Achates bore. 760 



657-679] BOOK I. 33 

But Venus in her subtle breast conceives 
A new device — that Cupid in the form 
Of young Ascanius should beguile the queen. 
Inflame with gifts her ardent soul, and warm 
Her inmost veins with unsuspected fire. 
The smooth-tongued Tyrian race the Goddess fears. 
And rancorous Juno robs her couch of rest. 
Her winged boy she thus accosts : ' My son, 
Source of my power and sway, who Jove's dread bolts, 
That quelled the Titans, canst alone defy; 77c 

Thy mother comes, a suppliant for thine aid. 
Well hast thou known how Juno's causeless hate 
The Trojan chief, thy brother, hath pursued 
O'er land and sea ; thou oft hast shared my grief. 
Him now Phoenician Dido captive holds, 
And with her blandishments constrains to stay : 
These courtesies of Juno I mistrust \ 
Her plots at such conjuncture will not fail : 
My purpose is to baffle guile with guile, 
And weave my fiery snares around the queen, 780 
That no seduction move her soul to change, 
Fast to zEneas bound with love like mine. 
Xow, learn thy part. First object of my care, 
The youth Ascanius, by his sire's command, 
E'en now to Carthage goes with costly gifts, 
Saved from the vanquished town and stormy seas : 

VOL. I. C 



34 THE iENEID. [680-701 

Him wrapped in trance-like slumber will I bear 

To far Idalia, or Cythera's heights, 

There safely hide him, lest, our craft discerned, 

He mar the plan. Do thou for one brief night 790 

The stripling's form assume, and, skilled to feign, 

With boyish aspect personate the boy. 

So when fair Dido at her princely board, 

While freely flows the wine and all is joy, 

Shall clasp thee in her arms, with fond caress 

Enfold, and print sweet kisses on thy lips, 

The insidious poison through her veins may glide, 

By thee instilled, and fire the unguarded heart.' 

Young Love obeys the mandate, nothing loth, 
Doffs his light wings, and mocks lulus' mien \ 800 
But Venus o'er her dear Ascanius sheds 
Sleep's soothing balm, then to Idalian groves 
Bears in her arms, where soft Amaracus 
Laps him in flowery sweets, and screens with shade. 

Now frolic Cupid by Achates led, 
Well stored with presents, to the palace speeds. 
There, in the centre of her gilded couch, 
Beneath rich canopies, the queen reclines. 
The Trojan chief and all his gallant train 
On purple cushions round the board are ranged. 810 
Pages their various ministries fulfil — 
Pour water for the hands, the wheaten cakes 



702-722] BOOK I. 35 

From baskets deal, the fine-spun napkins bear ; 

Within the household fifty handmaids serve, 

The meats dispense, the blazing hearths attend. 

A hundred youths, as many maidens fair, 

With meat the tables pile, the goblets fill. 

Xext, summoned to the feast, the Tyrian guests 

In joyous concourse enter, and repose 

On richly-broidered seats. Amazed they view 820 

The Trojan's costly gifts — the mantle rare, 

The saffron-bordered veil : lulus, too, 

Their wonder moves ; they mark the glance of fire 

And well-feigned accents of the furtive God : 

But most the queen, to love's fierce anguish doomed, 

Fired by the costly gifts and beauteous boy, 

Gloats on him with insatiable eyes, 

And feeds the kindling fever in her veins. 

Now in /Eneas' arms the child is clasped, 

And thrills with new delight his seeming sire ; 830 

To Dido now he runs — her eyes, her soul 

On him are riveted ; awhile she folds 

The urchin to her breast — ah ! little dreams 

What agonising God lies nestled there. 

He, mindful of his Paphian mother's charge, 

Full soon begins the memory to efface 

Of lost Sichaeus, and with living flame 

Warms the chilled heart too long disused to love. 



35 THE .£XEID. [723-743 

A pause succeeds the feast, the board is cleared, 
Huge beakers then are set and wreathed with flowers ; 
The vaulted roof with jocund converse rings ; S41 
Lamps from the gilded ceiling pendent shine, 
And blazing cressets change the night to day. 
Now for a mighty goblet Dido calls, 
Ponderous with gems and gold, by Belus used 
And all his race. She fills it high with wine; 
The hall is hushed to silence, and she speaks : 

c Great Jove, o'er hospitable rites supreme. 
Be this auspicious day, with gladness fraught 
Alike to Tynans and their Trojan guests, Sfc 

By our descendants long in honour held ! 
May Bacchus, mirth-inspiring God, be here ; 
May gracious Juno smile ! Ye Tynans, hail 
With loyal hearts this festival of joy ! ' 
She spoke, and first libation made, the cup 
Touched with her lips, with sportive challenge then 
To Bitias gave : he promptly to the pledge 
Replied, and drenched him with the brimming bowl : 
Next drank the Tyrian lords. With golden lyre. 
Bard of the flowing locks, Iopas sang S6c 

Strains such as mighty Atlas taught of old — 
Sang of the changeful moon, of suns eclipsed. 
The primal birth of men and living things, 
Whence genial waters come and wasting fires ; 



744-756] BOOK I. 37 

Of planets, too, Arcturus, and the rise 
Of watery Hyades and the Northern Bears ; 
Why wintry suns so swiftly quench their beams, 
Why lengthening nights obscure the closing year ; — 
Vociferous in applause Troy vies with Tyre. 

She, too, with varied converse, ill-starred queen, 
Prolonged the night, and deeply drank of love. 871 
Of Priam much she asked, much craved to hear 
Of Hector's deeds, what armour Memnon wore, 
How swift the steeds of Diomed o'er the plain, 
Achilles' arm — how terrible in war ! 
• Xay, tell,' she said, ' the whole eventful tale, 
The Greeks' perfidious arts — thy people's fall — 
Thine own long wanderings, too, while doomed to 

roam 
Seven tedious years o'er even- land and sea.' 879 



THE £NEID 



BOOK II. 



I-I2J 



BOOK II. 



Silent they sat, in rapt attention all, 

When from his stately couch the Dardan chief 

Began : Thy mandate, gracious queen, revives 

A grief too great for words — how Grecian arms 

Laid Troy's lamented empire in the dust \ 

A tragic scene, which mine own eyes beheld, 

In which I bore much part : such tale, methinks, 

Nor Myrmidon, nor rude Thessalia's sons, 

Nor soldier of the obdurate Ithacan, 

Could hear unmoved. Already wanes the light, 10 

And setting stars admonish to repose ; 

But if thus urgent be thy wish to learn 

How Ilion fell, and all the woes we bore, 

Though shuddering at the thought of horrors past 

My soul recoils, this brief recital hear. 



42 THE iENEID. [13-34 

Wearied with tedious war, and foiled by Fate, 
Through many a tedious year, the chiefs of Greece 
Construct, by Pallas taught, a giant horse, 
Like some huge mountain towering from the plain, 
And sheathe the hollow ribs with planks of pine. 20 
1 A votive offering for their safe return/ 
'Twas rumoured : but within the caverned sides 
A chosen band they hide of warriors armed, 
A legion pent in that capacious womb. 

In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle 
Of wealth and wide renown while Priam reigned, 
A lonely bay and treacherous roadstead now. 
In that secluded creek, by night withdrawn, 
The Grecian fleet lay screened ; we fondly thought 
Their homeward sails for far Mycenae bound. 30 

Quit of her foes, the long-beleagured town 
Flings wide her gates ; the people, wild with joy, 
Explore the abandoned camp, and range the shores 
Unfearing : ' here the fierce Dolopians camped, 
There truculent Achilles pitched his tent ; 
Here rode the ships — the battle-field was there.' 
Some with mute wonder view the enormous horse — 
Minerva's baneful gift. Thymsetes first 
(Whether by foul design or Fate impelled) 
Exhorts us to instal the monstrous shape 40 

Within our fortress walls. A wiser few, 



35-57] BOOK II. 43 

Of whom the chief was Capys, bade us hurl 
The Greeks' perfidious offering in the sea, 
Or burn it where it stood, or with keen swords 
Probing the hollow sides, unmask the lair : 
Discordant counsels swayed the wavering crowd. 

Lo ! from the fort Laocoon, with a throng 
Of followers, hurries down, and as he runs 
Shouts from afar : ' O wretched countrymen, 
What means this frenzy? Do ye think, indeed, 50 
The foe decamped — his gifts without a snare ? 
For guileless counsels is Ulysses known? 
Or Greeks in yon dark ambush lie concealed, 
Or 'tis some engine framed to breach our walls, 
O'ertop our dwellings, and surprise the town ; 
Whate'er it means, 'tis treachery. Men of Troy, 
Trust not the horse ; beware of gifts when Greeks 
Turn givers.' As he spoke, his massive spear 
Full at the monster's bellying flank he hurled. 
It quivered with the blow, and mighty groans 60 

Rang through the vaulted chambers, peal on peal ; 
And but for fate perverse and warning spurned, 
Our swords had laid the thin-veiled ambush bare — 
Firm to this hour had stood great Priam's throne, 
Unscathed thy lofty towers, imperial Troy ! 

Behold ! a youth by shepherds to the king 
Dragged with loud cries, his arms behind him bound : — 



44 THE 2ENEID. [58-82 

Caught by his own device, with deep-laid scheme, 

To yield our gates unguarded to the foe, 

The stranger came ; for either fate prepared, 70 

His crafty purpose to achieve, or die. 

From far and wide the Trojan youth flocked round, 

To scan the captive's mien, and mock his woe. 

Mark now his craft, and from this pattern judge 

Of Grecian treachery. As within our lines 

He stood unarmed, and gazing round, confused, 

Beheld the Phrygian legions far and near : 

i Alas ! ' he cried, ' what spot on land or sea, 

What refuge on the inhospitable earth, 

Is left for me, the outcast of my kind — 80 

Whom Greeks in hate thrust from them, at whose life 

The Dardan sword is aimed, athirst for blood ? ' 

Touched by his piteous wail, our hearts relent ; 

In gentler mood we ask him whence he comes ; 

What tidings brings he, on what hope relies. 

His fears at last allayed, the captive spake. 

' Whate'er betide, great king, no word untrue 
Shall pass my lips \ nor seek I to disown 
My Grecian birth : though Fortune all her spite 
On Sinon wreak, no power can make him false. 90 
It may be the renown hath reached thine ears 
Of Palamedes, no inglorious name, 
From Belus sprung, whom our Pelasgian chiefs, 



83-105] BOOK 11. 45 

Indignant that his voice opposed the war, 
By process foul and evidence suborned, 
To death condemned \ now mourn, alas ! too late. 
With him, a kinsman, did my needy sire 
Despatch me, then a stripling, to the war, 
While yet his power stood firm, and influence high, 
At council-board ; nor was my name unknown 100 
In honour's field. When, through the jealous hate 
Of that intriguing Ithacan, my friend 
(A tale but too familiar) of his life 
The forfeit paid, — incensed at that foul deed, 
In solitude and gloom I passed my days, 
Nor, reckless as I was, from speech refrained, 
But vowed, should Fate restore me to my home — 
My native Argos — to revenge the wrong. 
Fierce wrath my words engendered : hence the source 
Of all my woes ; Ulysses ceased not now no 

New charges to devise ; malicious hints 
Broadcast he sowed, and, self-accused of guilt, 
Sought instruments to crush me. Never slept 
His malice, till with Calchas for his tool — 
But why thus linger o'er a loathsome theme ? 
Why hear me ? if ye count all Greeks alike, 
Swift vengeance take, 'twill please Ulysses much, 
And yield the sons of Atreus priceless joy.' 
But eager all the more to sound the depths 



46 THE iENEID. [106-129 

Of Grecian craft, we bade him freely speak ; 120 

With well-feigned trepidation he resumed : 

' Long wished our Argive leaders to retreat, 

With war outwearied, and abandon Troy : 

Would they had sailed ! But oft rude southern gales 

Rose in their teeth, and tempests barred the sea : 

More wildly still, when yonder horse of wood 

Rose in his towering stature, raged the storm. 

To Delos sent in haste, Eurypilus 

Brings back this awful message from the shrine : 

" With maiden's blood ye pacified the winds, 130 

When to these shores ye came; with blood, ye Greeks, 

Win your return. A Grecian soul must die." 

Amazed, the people heard that dread response — 

Their hearts with terror chilled and dire suspense, 

" What victim claimed the God — who next should 

bleed F 
Loud was the uproar, when Ulysses dragged 
The prophet Calchas forth, and bade him tell 
What meant the oracle : and now my friends 
Forewarned me of the arch-deceiver's wiles, 
Or felt the dread their lips forbore to speak. 140 

Ten days the seer, reluctant to award 
The doom of death, stood mute : at last o'erpowered 
By clamour of Ulysses, he the word 
Concerted spake, and sentenced me to die. 



130-154] BOOK II. 47 

All gave assent — each gladly saw the doom 
Himself abhorred, to one devoted head 
Transferred. And now the fatal day drew near \ 
For me the awful pageant was prepared — 
The salted meal, the fillets for my brow : 
I burst my bonds, 'tis true, and fled for life. 150 

Couched in a sedgy swamp all night I lay 
Expectant, till the winds should fill their sails : 
And now my long-lost home, my sire thrice loved, 
Xo more these eyes shall see, nor children dear, 
On whose defenceless heads my foes may wreak 
Revenge, and hold them forfeit for my flight. 
But thou, O king ! if there be powers on high 
That hear my words and witness to their truth, — 
If faith yet finds a home with mortal men, 
My anguish pity, and redress my wrong.' 160 

Moved by his tears, we gave the recreant life. 
Good Priam, prompt to pity, bade them loose 
The tight-drawn cords, and gracious words he spake : 
' Henceforth, though born a Greek, forget the name \ 
Make Troy thy home : but speak, 1 charge thee, true \ 
What means yon giant horse ? by whom contrived ? 
With what design ? — of piety or war ? ' 

Extending heavenward his untrammelled hands, 
The caitiff, steeped in native craft, replied : 
' Witness, ye everlasting fires of heaven ! 170 



48 THE yENEID. [155-178 

And Vesta, thou, inviolable name ! 
Ye altars that but now your victim claimed, 
Ye sacrificial bands that wreathed my brow ! 
No ties of race or country bind me more : 
No law forbids their counsels to divulge, 
And hate for hate return. Be ye but true 
To me, as I to Troy — my life preserved 
With loyal service shall o'erpay the boon. 

c Since first the war began our chiefs relied 
For victory on Minerva's aid alone ; 180 

But since that soul of guile, Ulysses, planned 
In concert with Tydides, impious pair ! 
To steal the dread Palladium from her shrine : — 
The guards they slew, the hallowed image seized, 
The fillets of the virgin Goddess soiled 
With gory hands ; — thenceforth the hopes of Greece 
Sank like an ebbing tide; their strength declined, 
Minerva turned their foe. No dubious signs 
Her wrath betokened : placed within the camp, 
The effigy with fiery eyeballs glared; 190 

Sweat trickled o'er the limbs ; thrice from the ground 
The Goddess leapt, with shield and quivering spear. 
Then Calchas bade us cross the waves once more, 
For never by our arms should Troy by razed, 
Till sons of Argos from their native shrines 
Should seek new auguries, and the auspicious spells 



179-204] BOOK II. 49 

Win back, that o'er the waves to Troy they bore. 

Now for Mycenae bound, with Gods to aid, 

And arms recruited, will the host return 

All unforeseen. So Calchas reads the signs. 200 

This image to the Goddess have they raised, 

In expiation of her rifled fane : 

So tall, so vast in bulk of purpose framed, 

Lest entering at your gates it shield the town 

With the strong bulwark of its ancient faith. 

For thus the seer proclaimed — should your rash hands 

Minerva's consecrated gift profane, 

Then fell destruction (may that curse recoil 

On his own head !) shall Priam's race overwhelm : 

But if within your citadel installed 210 

The horse shall rest, then Asia, leagued in arms, 

'Gainst Pelops' towers shall hurl invasion's tide. 

And our descendants reap that awful doom.' 

Such tale found credence ; perjured Sinon's tears 
A victory gained which arms had never won — 
Not Diomed, nor Larissa's mighty lord, 
Ten years of siege, nor fleet of thousand sails ! 

A mightier portent, more terrific still, 
Confronts us now, and awes the unthinking crowd. 
Laocoon, Neptune's priest by lot assigned, 220 

Was slaying to his God a lusty steer, 
When two huge serpents, horrible to tell ! 

vol. 1. D 



50 THE ^ENEID. [205-224 

Of girth prodigious, o'er the smooth expanse 
From Tenedos came floating on the brine, 
And glided towards the beach ; their necks outstretched 
And blood-tinted crests o'ertopped the flood, 
Their nether parts, in coils enormous wound, 
Trailed after them. The waters, lashed to foam, 
Roared in their wake. And now they gained the 

shore, 
Their eyes suffused with blood and darting fire, 230 
Their hissing jaws beslavered with the froth 
Shed from their flickering tongues — we at the sight 
Flee all dismayed; they with unswerving aim 
Dart on Laocoon ; first, with supple folds 
Clasping the slender forms of his two sons, 
They banquet on the agonising limbs. 
The father next, in haste with arms to aid, 
In their fell gripe they clutch, about his waist 
Twice coiled and doubly circling round his throat, 
While o'er his head their lofty crests they rear. 240 
Vainly he strives to rend the scaly links, 
His priestly bands defiled and smeared with gore ; 
Piercing the air with shrieks, like maddened ox 
That, when the ill-aimed axe hath glanced aside, 
Wounded and bellowing from the altar flies. 
Now to the temple's roof, where Pallas sits, 
The monsters glide ; there, coiled around her feet, 



225-249] BOOK II. 51 

Beneath the ample aegis make their lair. 

Then horror thrilled each bosom to its core : 
Too well, 'twas said, Laocoon's crime had earned 
Its awful recompense, whose guilty spear, 251 

Aimed at the hallowed form, had pierced its side. 
To drag within the walls that image dread, 
And soothe Minerva's wrath, — was now the cry. 
All lend a willing hand, they breach the walls 
And clear a passage wide : beneath the feet 
Huge rollers drive, and hempen cables twine 
Around the lofty neck : teeming with anus, 
The deadly engine o'er the rampart climbs : 
!Maidens and youths their sacred carols chant, 260 
And press to touch the cords. Along the streets 
It glides, and beetles o'er the roofs of Troy. 
Ilion ! O my country ! O ye towers 
Of Dardanus, for feats of war far-famed ! 
Abode of Gods ! thrice, ere it passed the gates, 
The monster paused, thrice clashed the arms within : 
Yet onward still we press, besotted, blind, 
And in our sacred citadel enshrine 
The accursed shape. Then, too, Cassandra raised 
Her prescient voice — that voice that ever fell 270 
Unheard — so willed the Gods — on Trojan ears. 
Deluded to the last, we deck our fanes 
With festal garlands on the eve of doom. 



52 THE 2EXEID. [250-271 

The face of heaven is changed, swift night descends, 
Her dusky curtain falls o'er earth and sea, 
Shrouding the Grecian wiles : the sons of Troy, 
Through all the town dispersed, their weary limbs 
In sleep repose. And now, the Argive fleet, 
Freighted with all their host, for Ilion bound, 
Beneath the silent moon's befriending beam 2 3o 

Sailed forth from Tenedos. As from her deck 
The royal bark displayed the signal flame, 
False Sinon, prompted by malignant Gods, 
The bolts withdrew, and from their lair set free 
The imprisoned Greeks : with joy they sprung to light, 
Emerging from the monster's teeming sides, 
Thessandrus, Sthenelus — by ropes let down — 
And dread Ulysses ; Thoas, Achamas, 
With Neoptolemus — Achilles' son — 
Machaon, Menelaus, and the head 290 

That hatched the plot, Epeus. They surprise 
The unwary town, in wine and slumber drowned, 
The sentries slay, fling open to their friends 
The gates, and marshal their confederate bands. 

'Twas in the early watches of the night, 
When heaven-sent slumber lightens human care ; 
Then, as I slept, methought great Hector's self, 
Exceeding sad and weeping floods of tears, 
Beside me stood : so looked he as of late 



272-291] book 11. 53 

Dragged at the victor's chariot-wheels, all stained 300 
With dust and dark with gore, his livid feet 
Pierced with the cruel thongs. Ah me ! how changed 
From that proud Hector who, in spoils arrayed 
Of great Achilles, from the fight returned, 
Or swept their Grecian decks with Phrygian flames ! 
Lo ! now his beard unkempt, his clotted hair, 
And his scarred bosom, pierced with many a wound ' 
In mortal combat round those Dardan towers. 
Weeping I gazed, and words of anguish broke 
Unbidden from my lips : ' O light of Troy ! 310 

Hope of our race ! whence art thou ? why so long 
Delayed thy coming? in what sore distress, 
Bereft of thy brave comrades, overwhelmed 
With endless woes — our country's and our own — 
Behold we now our Hector, long-desired ! 
But say, what foul despite thy gracious form 
Hath thus defaced? what mean those ghastly 
wounds ? ' 
He to such idle quest no answer deigned, 
But heaving from his breast a mighty groan : 
' Fly, Goddess-born,' he cried, ' ere yet the flames 320 
Arrest thee : all is lost — our walls admit 
The foe — proud Ilion from her summit falls. 
For Troy and Priam hath enough been done ; 
Could arm of man have saved our sinking state, 



54 THE ^ENEID. [292-312 

That arm was mine. To thee thy country trusts 

Her sacred ministries, her household Gods. 

Make these the partners of thy fate : for these 

In distant land, beyond the traversed main, 

A city shalt thou build/ This said, he snatched 

From Vesta's shrine the unextinguished fire, 330 

The fillet bands, and effigy divine. 

Meanwhile a wildering roar of sounds confused 
The city filled : though from the din retired, 
And screened with trees, Anchises' mansion stood — 
E'en there the uproar wild and clash of arms 
Louder and louder came. From slumber roused, 
I climbed the roof-top, and stood still to hear : — 
Such was the sound as when wild southern blasts 
Through waving cornfields drive the roaring flame, 
Or when the mountain torrent, swoln with storms, 340 
Lays some fair champaign waste, — the cultured fields, 
And labours of the swain, — and whirls along 
The woods uprooted in its headlong race : 
Astounded from the heights the shepherd hears 
The tempest's wrack. Now was the truth made plain, 
The Grecian plots disclosed. In ruin soon, 
Deiphobus, thy stately mansion lay, 
O'ermastered by the flames : thy neighbouring walls 
Next caught the blaze, Ucalegon ; the waves 
Far o'er Sigeum's cape flung back the glare. 350 



313-334] BOOK II. 55 

Then rose the battle-shout and trumpet's bray — 
Madly I fly to arms, though reason owns 
That arms are useless now ; yet longs my soul 
A trusty band to rally, and hold out 
The citadel ; with wrathful passion fired, 
Methought 'twere glorious end in fight to die. 

Lo ! Pantheus, scarce escaped the Grecian spears, 
The son of Othrys and Apollo's priest, 
His outcast Gods and sacred vessels bears, 
His youthful grandchild clinging to his side, 360 

And rushes, wild with terror, to my gate. 
' Ho ! Pantheus,' I exclaim, ' how fares the cause ? 
What stronghold shall we seize ? ' He with deep sigh 
Replies, ' Alas ! my friend, the hour is come — 
The doom we cannot 'scape from : — sons of Troy 
Are we no longer — Ilion is no more ; 
Dardania's glories live but in the past. 
Remorseless Jove to Greece transfers the sway, 
The Argive lords it in our blazing streets. 
Towering aloft, the accursed horse pours forth 370 
His warrior brood, while glorying in his wiles 
False Sinon deals the fiery brands around. 
Such hosts Mycenae never sent to war 
As throng our unclosed gates — the streets are barred 
With serried foes — a rampart of bright steel 
Glistens with sword-points fixed — amid the gloom 



56 THE iENEID. [335-357 

Surprised, our sentries scarce make feint to fight.' 
Fired at his words, and maddening for the fray, 
Amid the roaring flames and shock of amis 
Headlong I plunged, where'er the Battle-fiend 3 So 
With loudest shrieks and wildest havoc raged. 
First, as it chanced, the moon's uncertain light 
Brought Ripheus to my side, and Epytus, 
A warrior well renowned : next Dymas came, 
With Hypanis, and Mygdon's gallant son 
Choroebus ; he, distracted with the love 
Of young Cassandra, to King Priam's aid 
For her dear sake his gallant succours led : 
O that his plighted bride's ecstatic strains 
Had warned him of his doom ! 

When these I saw 
In close array, and panting for the fight : 391 

' Brave friends/' I cried, •' but brave in vain, if yet 
Ye dare to follow one who dares the worst, 
Mark in what plight we stand ; our country's Gods, 
Erewhile this empire's strength, forsake their shrines — 
The city ye defend is wrapt in flames : 
Then charge yon foemen's ranks, and die for Troy ! 
Despair itself lends hope when hope is none.' 

My words inspired new ardour ■ fierce as wolves. 
Whom hunger's pangs at nightfall drive abroad, 400 
Or quest of plunder for their ravening whelps, 



35S-3S5] book 11. 57 

"Mid fire and sword, despairing of our fate, 

We range the city through : night's murky cloud 

Enfolds us in its canopy of gloom. 

The carnage and the horrors of that night 

What tongue can tell, what flood of tears bewail ? 

The old imperial city is laid low, 

Her streets, her fanes, her dwellings, piled with dead. 

Xor Troy alone the brunt of battle bears, 

Her vanquished sons take heart awhile, and Greeks 

Bleed in their turn : on every side is death 411 

In countless forms, and anguish and dismay. 

Androgeos, captain of a Grecian band, 
First, in the gloom encountering, deems us friends, 
And chides, as comrade might : ' On, laggards, on ! 
Why linger thus ? Your fellows, more alert, 
Already sack and strip the burning town : 
Ye from your ships thus slowly wend ? ' He spoke, 
And in a moment, meeting scant response, 
Knew us for foes : at once his step was stayed, 420 
His voice was dumb. As one that on a snake 
Stumbling in thorny covert unawares, 
Recoils affrighted from the sweltering throat 
Of the roused monster, towering in his ire ; 
So the scared Greeks spring back — at once we close, 
And in compact battalion hem them round ■ 
With panic seized, in unknown paths surprised, 



58 THE iENEID. [386-408 

They fall in heaps around. Thus Fortune speeds 
Our first adventure well. With triumph flushed, 
And confident of soul, Choroebus cries : 430 

' Such promise of success methinks, brave friends, 
'Twere wisdom to pursue : exchange we now 
Our shields and scutcheons with the fallen foe, 
And mask us in his spoils ; the battle o'er, 
Who asks if craft or valour won the day ? ' 
This said, he seized the Greek's emblazoned shield, 
Placed on his head the casque with nodding plume, 
And girt the Argive falchion to his side. 
Next Ripheus, Dymas, and the rest, well pleased, 
Attire them in the trappings of the slain ; 440 

Then, mingling with the Greeks, we scour the town, 
And, favoured by the night, in many a fray 
Victorious, lay the invaders in the dust. 
Some wait not combat, but with hurried flight 
Rush to their ships \ a coward few remount 
The sheltering horse, and couch them in his lair. 
Ah ! bootless, brief success, unblest of heaven ! 
Lo ! with dishevelled hair and frantic mien 
Cassandra, from the tutelary shrine 
Of Pallas dragged a captive, lifts in vain 450 

Her flashing eyes to heaven ; her eyes — for bonds 
Her hands confined ; infuriate at the sight, 
Choroebus singly 'gainst a host in arms 



409-429] book 11. 59 

Rushed to his certain fate \ reckless alike 
We follow, close-beset with serried foes. 

But now a piteous slaughter thins our ranks — 
Our friends, deceived by feint of borrowed arms 
And Grecian helmets, from the temple's roof 
Hurl on our heads an iron shower of spears. 
Now, too, the Greeks — the sons of Atreus twain — 
Fierce Ajax and the whole Dolopian host — 461 

Fired at the rescue of their maiden prize, 
Join in one furious charge their severed bands, — 
As when the winds of heaven, north, south, and west, 
And that wild rider of the eastern gale, 
With warring blasts encounter in mid-air ; 
The reeling forests groan ; the Sea-god roused, 
With his forked sceptre stirs the depths profound, 
And churns the waves to foam. 

A crowd of foes, 
Whom in the darkness our deceitful arms 470 

Had scattered, rally now \ at once detect 
Our emblems feigned, and tones unlike their own. 
By numbers we are crushed : Chorcebus first, 
Struck down by Peneleus, beside the shrine 
Of Pallas the Armipotent, expires. 
Next Ripheus falls ; of all the sons of Troy 
Most upright he, of faith inflexible ; 
But heaven so willed ! Then Dymas, slain by friends, 



60 THE ^ENEID. [43°-449 

And Hypanis ; nor could thy blameless life, 

O Pantheus ! nor Apollo's mitre, save 480 

Thy sacred head. 

Witness, ye dying fires 
Of Troy, ye ashes of her heroes slain, 
In that last conflict from no foe I quailed, 
No danger shunned ; had fate decreed my fall, 
My deeds had earned me no inglorious end. 
Now severed was our company ; with me 
Went Iphitus, a warrior weak with age, 
And Pelias, from the wound Ulysses gave. 
Thence deafening shouts to Priam's mansion call : 
So furious there the strife, you well might deem 490 
No battle waged, no death-blows dealt beside, 
In all the town. Unflinchingly the Greeks, 
Linking their shields in tortoise form o'erhead, 
Rush on the palace gates : the storming crew, 
Their ladders firmly grappling to the walls, 
Press upward, step by step : the left hand bears 
The targe upraised for shelter, with the right 
They grasp the battlements. Not less resolved, 
The Trojans from the roof huge rafters tear, 
And turrets hurl, and beams inlaid with gold, — 500 
Pride of ancestral mansions, — on the foe ; 
Nor spare in dire extremity to wield 
What weapons chance may lend. A trusty guard, 



450-474] BOOK II. 6 1 

With falchions bared, defends the doors below. 
Our hearts beat high to save the imperial dome 
From rapine, and revive our drooping friends. 

There stood a postern-gate that through the courts 
Of Priam's palace secret access gave, 
Whereby Andromache, while Priam held 
His throne, would unattended pass to greet 510 

The royal pair, or lead her infant son, 
Astyanax, to his fond grandsire's arms : 
There entering, to the battlements I climbed, 
Whence Trojan spearmen still made feeble fight. 
Skirting the parapet, a watch-tower rose 
Sheer to the sky, whence all the plain of Troy, 
The Grecian camp, and anchored fleet beyond, 
Lay to the view outstretched. With lever's point. 
Inserted where the loosened floors gave room, 
A breach we make — the turret, undermined, 520 

In instantaneous ruin topples down, 
Crushing a host beneath : still as they fall 
New swarms succeed ; nor fails a moment's space 
The unceasing storm of javelins, brands, and stones. 

Lo ! Pyrrhus at the gates, with conquest flushed, 
In burnished mail all radiant — like a snake 
With poisonous grasses fed, that in the earth 
Lay couched and bloated all the winter long ; — 
Warmed to new life, his scaly raiment purged, 



62 THE iENElD. [475~499 

Full in the sun his glittering breast he rears, 530 

Trails his smooth coils, and darts his arrowy tongue. 
Huge Periphas, and brave Automedon, 
Who drove Achilles' car and bore his arms, 
With all the Scyrian youth, beset the walls — 
Fling firebrands on the roof. The chief himself, 
With axe in hand, the massive portal cleaves 5 
The brazen posts are severed ; the strong oak, 
Pierced through and through, a gaping fissure yields. 
Lo ! Priam's inmost chambers stand revealed, 
The stately courts of ancient kings laid bare, 540 

And sentries armed across the threshold stand. 

Within is tumult all and dire dismay, 
And women's agonising shrieks that pierce 
The skies and through the vaulted dome resound : 
Pale mothers run distracted to and fro, 
Or round the columns with fond kisses cling. 
To Pyrrhus all gives way \ nor barriers strong, 
Nor guards withstand him — all his father's might 
Is in that youthful arm : unhinged, and rent 
By ceaseless battery, sinks the massive door ; 550 
Force carries all before it — on they come : 
The foremost guards are slain ; the Greeks rush in, 
Resistless as a stream whose tide, unpent, 
Sweeps pile and mound away, and o'er the plain 
Bursts in a flood, engulfing flocks and folds. 



500-518] BOOK II. 63 

Within the threshold with these eyes I saw 

Fell Pyrrhus maddening in the gory fray — 

Saw both the hated sons of Atreus' line — 

Saw Hecuba with all her weeping train, 

Wives of a hundred sons, and — saddest sight ! — 560 

The altar, hallowed late by Priam's vows, 

Now reeking with his blood. Within those walls 

Were fifty bridal-chambers, promise fair 

Of royal progeny ; their couches decked 

With gold, and spoils barbaric — all o'erthrown, — 

The Greek is master where the flames have failed. 

Hear now the piteous tale of Priam's end. 
Soon as he learns his captured city's fate, 
His palace stormed, the foeman in his halls, 
The aged chief arrays his trembling limbs — 570 

Ah, bootless task ! — in armour long disused, 
Clasps to his side his unavailing sword, 
And sallies forth to die. An altar vast 
Within the precincts of the palace walls, 
Stood open to the sky, and, close beside, 
An ancient fig-tree with expanding shade 
O'ercanopied the shrine. Here Hecuba 
And her fair daughters terror-stricken sate, 
Like doves that cower before the darkening storm, 
And clasped with fond embrace their country's gods. 
Soon as the queen her royal spouse beheld 581 






64 THE ^ENEID. [519-538 

Arrayed in panoply of arms, unmeet 

For reverend age, her anguish thus burst forth : 

' What dire resolve is this ? what madness prompts 

To gird thee with these arms, unhappy lord ? 

Not such the champion nor the aid we crave 

In hour of mortal need : 'twere bootless now, 

Though Hector's self, our loved and lost, were here I 

Hither retreat ; this shrine shall guard us all, 

In life or death — a refuge or a tomb/ 590 

Thus Hecuba : submissive to her prayer, 

The king within the hallowed pale retires. 

But now Polites, child of Priam's age, 
Sore wounded by Achilles' vengeful son, 
Flies, winged by terror, down the long arcades, 
Darts through the vacant courts, and strains for life : 
Him Pyrrhus with uplifted arm and spear 
Pursues, in act to strike ; the goal just gained, 
Even at his father's feet the unhappy boy 
Exhausted sinks, and bathed in blood expires. 600 
Then could not Priam, though in utmost strait, 
And face to face with death, forbear to speak, 
Nor curb his righteous ire : c To thee/ he cried, 
' For this thy cruel and unnatural deed, 
Full retribution shall the Gods award 
(If Gods, indeed, take reckoning of such crimes). 
Inhuman ! who with murder of a son 



539-5^1] BOOK II. 65 

Hast done foul outrage to a father's eyes. 

Unlike to thee, thy falsely- vaunted sire, 

Achilles, though an enemy, my suit 610 

Disdained not, but a suppliant's rights revered : 

My Hector's corpse for sepulture restored, 

Me to my home sent scathless.' As he spoke, 

His feeble spear with nerveless arm he threw. 

It clattered on the brass, but made no dint. 

And in the target's boss innocuous hung. 

1 This message, then/ cried Pyrrhus, ' shalt thou bear, 

Old man, and to my sire in shades below 

Tell the ill deeds of his degenerate son : 

Xow die.' He seized the unresisting king, 620 

And dragged him o'er the pavement, all beslimed 

With his son's life-blood, to the altar's side \ 

Then with his left hand clutched the hoar}* locks, 

And drawing with his right the gleaming blade, 

Hilt-deep he plunged it in the monarch's breast. 

Such was the issue of his fate — such death 

Great Priam died, with Troy before his eyes 

In blazing ruin laid, — there, in the dust, 

Once lord of Asia's wide and peopled realm, 

A headless form, a nameless trunk, he lay. 630 

Then horror first o'ermastered me ; I stood 
Aghast : the murdered monarch's form recalled 
My sire, in years the same ; with him the thought 

vol. 1. e 



66 THE ;ENEID. [562-586 

Of my forsaken spouse, Creusa, came, 

Of young lulus, and our ravaged home. 

I gazed around ; my comrades all were gone — 

Exhausted they had sunk, or in despair 

Leapt from the walls or plunged amid the flames. 

Awhile I stood alone, when in the gloom 
Of Vesta's fane a cowering form I spied — 640 

'Twas Helen. As with all-observant eyes 
I scanned the scene, the burning city's glare 
Threw light upon her ; she — of all abhorred, 
And fearing all ; the hate of ruined Troy, 
The Argive's vengeance, her wronged husband's wrath; 
Alike the curse of Ilium and of Greece — 
Concealed and crouching at the altar lay. 
Rage grew within me at the sight ; I burned 
To wreak resentment for my country's wrongs 
Upon that guilty head : ' Shall such as she 650 

Flaunt with our Phrygian maidens in her train 
Through Sparta or Mycenae, like a queen 
Flushed with the pride of conquest ? unavenged 
Shall Priam fall ? his city wrapt in flames, 
His soil in carnage steeped? — it must not be; 
For though such conquest o'er a woman won 
Scant honour yield, 'twere no unworthy deed 
To execute stern justice for foul crime, 
To slake the burning passion for revenge, 



5S7-609] BOOK II. 67 

And soothe the injured Manes of the slain.' 660 

Thus in the storm and frenzy of my thoughts, 
Discoursing with myself I raved, when lo ! 
A luminous form athwart the darkness gleamed : 
My Goddess-mother — never seemed before 
So heavenly bright the vision ; all divine 
In form and stature, as she moves on high 
Among the Immortals : firmly by my hand 
She held me, as with roseate lips she spake : 
' Ah ! why, my son, this transport of wild wrath ? 
Where now thy care for me — so quickly flown? 670 
Nor knowest thou in what plight thy helpless sire 
Be left — if yet Creusa and thy child 
Ascanius live : meanwhile the banded Greeks 
Swarm round them ; my protecting arm alone 
Averts the sword and shields them from the flame. 
If Ilion sinks in dust, not Helen's form 
Abhorred, nor much-blamed Paris, but the Gods — 
The inexorable Gods — have dealt the blow, 
And laid in ruins this majestic realm. 
Lo ! now the humid cloud will I dispel 680 

That darkens o'er thy mortal sense and clouds 
Thy vision : thou, whatever thy mother's voice 
Enjoins, obey. Mark you those riven piles, 
Huge stones asunder wrenched, 'mid billowy clouds 
Of smoke and dust commingled ? Neptune there 



68 THE /ENEID. [610-633 

The deep foundations with his trident heaves. 
And rocks the tottering city to its base. 
There, first and fiercest, at the Scasan gates, 
With sword begirt, dread Juno from the ships 
Fresh succours to the deadly onslaught calls. 690 

See ! on the rampart's verge, a cloud-veiled form, 
With Gorgon shield refulgent, Pallas sits. 
Great Jove himself against yon towers incites 
The Gods ; himself lends fury to the foe. 
Fly, then, my son, thy bootless toil give o'er ; 
Myself will shield and guide thee to thy home.' 
She spoke, and vanished in the murky night. 
Terrific shapes appear : the Gods in arms 
Arrayed, the dread antagonists of Troy. 

Now suddenly before my vision seemed 700 

Great Neptune's towers to sink amid the flames — 
Like some old mountain-ash on lofty peak, 
That foresters with blows of sturdy axe 
Strain all their strength to fell ; the quivering stem 
Totters awhile and bows its leafy head, 
Impending to its fall ■ till, stroke by stroke 
Asunder cleft, it heaves a parting groan, 
And strews, a giant wreck, the mountain-side. 
Safe in my heavenly guardian's charge I pass 
Uninjured through the thickest of the fight — 710 

The flames give room, the darts are turned aside. 



634-656] BOOK II. 69 

But when at last my old paternal home 
Was gained, my father — he, whom first I sought, 
And longed to bear for safety to the hills — 
Refuses to outlive his country's fall, 
Or brave an exile's fate : ' For you/ he cried, 
' Whose limbs are firmly strung, whose pulses beat 
With unabated life, 'tis well to fly. 
Had Heaven designed to lengthen my brief span, 
Its hand had spared these walls : enough for me — 
Enough and more — that this proud city's wreck 721 
I once beheld, and lived when Ilion fell. 
Go \ bid me thus, as one laid out for death, 
A solemn last farewell; the parting stroke 
Myself will give; the foe that spoils perchance 
Will pity too : to die unsepulchred 
Afflicts not me, who all too long have borne 
The burthen of a life unblest of heaven, 
Since me the all-ruling sire of Gods and men 
Branded with lightning-blast and scathed with fire.' 

Thus rooted in his firm resolve he stood : 731 

In vain our household all, dissolved in tears, 
My wife, my child, — besought him to relent, 
Xor, rushing on his fate, o'erwhelm us all : 
Deaf to our prayers, he stirs not. In despair 
Once more I fly to arms and covet death, 
Since counsel failed and chance no succour gave. 



70 THE ^NEID. [657-677 

' Heard I aright, and couldst thou bid thy son 

(O words unseemly from a father's lips !) 

Forsake these shores and leave thee to thy fate ? 740 

If the high Gods of all that once was Troy 

No remnant spare, and thy resolve consigns 

Thyself, friends, kindred, to the common doom. 

Have now thy wish fulfilled. Lo ! Pyrrhus comes 

Reeking with blood of Priam and his race, 

Who butchered in the father's sight the child, 

And at the altar's foot the father slew. 

For this, dear Goddess-mother, didst thou save 

From sword and flame thy hardly-rescued son, 

That murderous foes should riot in his halls — 750 

Wife, father, child, before his eyes despatched, 

Sink in one bloody grave ! To arms, brave friends ! 

To arms ! and charge the conquering Greeks once 

more. 
Be death our portion ; one at least will die 
Not unavenged ! ' 

Once more I grasp my sword, 
Adjust my shield, and gird me for the fight ; 
But ere I passed the gate, Creusa knelt, 
lulus in her arms, and clasped my feet : 
' If death you seek/ she cried, i why leave us here ? 
The doom you meet be ours ! if yet you trust 760 
In spear and shield, remain and guard your home. 



678-701] BOOK II. 71 

To whom wouldst thou abandon all most dear ? 
Thy father, young lulus, me thy wife, — 
Till now, alas ! so deemed.' With sobs she spoke, 
And through the mansion rang her piteous wail. 

But now a wondrous portent we beheld. 
As 'twixt his parent's arms lulus lay, 
A slender tuft of flame from his fair head 
Emerging, flashed amid his waving locks 
With harmless sheen, and round his temples played. 
Alarmed, we wring the blazing hair, and haste 771 
With water to allay the sacred fire ; 
But good Anchises lifted with delight 
His eyes, and stretched his suppliant arms to heaven. 
' All-puissant Jove ! if mortal prayers can move 
Thy pity, hear us now ; to pious hearts 
Lend succour, and confirm the auspicious sign.' 
Scarce had he ceased to speak, when on the left 
A sudden peal of thunder shook the sky ; 
Then darted down a solitary star, 780 

Trailing a stream of light athwart the gloom : 
We marked its course as o'er the palace roof 
It seemed to glide, then sank in Ida's woods, 
Graving its fiery track adown the skies ; 
While with sulphureous vapour reeked the air. 
Instant the old man rose, the mystic star 
Adored, and bowed submission. ' On !' he said; 



>]2 THE iENEID. -"702-724 

{ Xo more I bid you linger — let us go ! 
Gods of my fathers ! guard our ancient house, 
And this its heir ! from you the augury came ; 790 
Troy by your grace yet lives. Go on. my son ; 
Where'er you lead, I follow.' 

As he spoke. 
Xear and more near the burning city's crash 
Smote on our ears, more scorching grew the blast. 
1 Now, father, on my shoulders mount,' I cried ; 
1 These arms shall bear thee well, nor grudge their load. 
Let both one peril face, whate'er befall, 
Or one deliverance share : with me shall walk 
Ascanius hand in hand : my wife behind 
Keep the same track, and mark our footsteps well : 
And ye, my followers, this injunction heed : Sci 

Beyond the ramparts, on a slope retired, 
An unfrequented fane of Ceres stands, 
Hard by an ancient cypress, that of old 
Was hallowed by the worship of our sires. 
There will we reunite our scattered bands. 
Our Gods and sacred rites, thou, father, bear : 
I, soiled with blood, red-handed from the fight, 
May touch them not, till purged by living stream.' 

Apparelled in a tawny lion's hide, 810 

My shoulders now received their honoured load : 
Beside me, pacing with unequal steps, 



725-749] BOOK II. 73 

Ascanius clasped his little hand in mine ; 
Behind Creusa came. Through darkling ways 
We strode ; and I, whom late nor shower of spears 
Xor serried Greeks alarmed, now, coward made 
By him whose steps I led, and him I bore, 
Start at each sound and tremble at the wind. 
At last we reached the gates, and deemed escape 
Assured, when trampling as of warrior feet 820 

Seemed close at hand, and, peering through the gloom; 

• Haste, haste, my son ! they come ! ' Anchises cried ; 

• I see their flashing arms and gleaming shields.' 
Twas then — I know not how — distraction held 
My reason spell-bound. As we travelled on 
By unfamiliar paths and by-ways dim, 
Creusa, by some dire mischance, was lost. 
Conjecture all was vain — if faint with toil 

She stopped to rest, or wandered from the way : 

Never in life these eyes beheld her more. 830 

Xor wist I, all bewildered, what befell, 

Till, halting for a while by Ceres' fane, 

Our little band we numbered — one was gone : 

Gone unperceived by husband, friends, or son. 

Frantic with grief, I railed on Gods and men ; 

Xor in the anguish of my country's fall 

Endured a keener pang. Within a nook 

Retired, to trusty comrades I consign 



74 THE iENEID. [750-772 

My child, Anchises, and the Gods of Troy. 

Then, armed for fight, again I scour the town, 840 

Reckless of life, and tempt my fate once more. 

Retracing step by step our devious track 
By wall and gate, I searched each dim recess : 
The silence as of death appalled my soul. 
Then to my home I turned, if haply there 
Her steps had wandered : ere I came the Greeks 
Had stormed the gates, and made our halls their 

own. 
E'en now the mantling flames, by night-wind fanned. 
Streamed o'er the roof: the air like furnace glowed. 
To Prianrs palace next I bent my way; 850 

There in the vacant courts, by Juno's shrine, 
Phoenix and stern Ulysses watched the spoil : 
Dread sentinels ! I saw the wealth of Troy 
Piled in promiscuous heaps : embroidered vests, 
Beakers of massive gold — the pillaged hoards 
Of blazing temples. Boys in long array, 
And matrons, shuddering in their bonds, stood near. 
Nor feared I through the unpeopled streets to shout 
Aloud to her I sought, till far and wide 
The walls re-echoed with Creusa's name. 860 

Yet fruitless still my wild distracted search 
Through all the city made, when suddenly 
The very counterpart of that dear form, 



773-795] BOOK II. 75 

Yet statelier than in life, — appalled my sight. 
With hair erect, and utterance choked with fear. 
I stood aghast. With soothing tones she spake : 
' Grieve not, dear husband mine, with frantic grief : 
Thus have the Gods ordained \ the Olympian king 
Permits not that Creusa share thy flight : 
It may not be : long exile must be thine, 870 

Wide seas must first be traversed ere thou gain 
The Hesperian clime, where Lydian Tiber glides 
With gently-coursing stream, prolific land 
Of heroes. Joyous days await thee there : 
A throne predestined, and a royal bride. 
Mourn not Creusa. No proud Myrmidon 
Me to his home shall bear; no Grecian dame 
Call me her slave — a Dardan princess born, 
Whom Venus daughter owns ! But now, farewell ! 
The mother of the Gods detains me here : 8 So 

Cherish our much - loved child : once more, fare- 
well!' 
She ceased, and as I wept and strove to frame 
The words that crowded to my lips, was gone. 
Thrice round her neck my longing arms were flung. 
Thrice did the dear illusion mock my grasp, 
Swift as the wind, and fleeting as a dream. 

Xow as the night was waning, I rejoined 
My comrades, and beheld our slender band 



y6 THE ,-ENEID. [796-804 

Swoln to a host, from every side convened. 
Wondering, I viewed the mingled group forlorn : 890 
Matrons and youths were there, and stalwart men, 
With stores for flight prepared, and hearts resolved 
My steps to follow, lead where'er I might, 
Beyond the main. O'er Ida's topmost peaks 
Rose now the morning-star, day's harbinger. 
All hopes of succour failed ; at every gate 
The Greeks kept watch and ward. To fate resigned, 
Once more I stooped my shoulders to receive 
My helpless sire, then climbed the mountain's side. 



THE JE N E I D 



BOOK III. 



1-13] 



BOOK III. 



When Asia's realm and Priam's guiltless race 
Fell doomed of heaven, and Ilion's stately towers, 
By Neptune built, a smoking ruin lay, 
Celestial portents warned us to depart, 
And seek new homes on some unpeopled shore. 
Hard by Antandros' walls, beneath the heights 
Of Ida, ships we build and levies raise : 
Our course, our destined haven, all unknown. 
My sire, Anchises, at the earliest dawn 
Of summer, bade us, trusting all to Fate, i o 

Hoist to the wind our sails. With tears I left 
My native shores, the plain that once was Troy — 
Launched on the deep an exile, with my friends, 
My child, my country's Gods, and household shrines. 
There is a land where Thracia's warlike sons 



80 THE iENEID. [14-38 

Till the broad plains that once Lycurgus ruled ; 

An hospitable coast and friendly tribe 

While Fortune smiled on Troy. Here first I land, 

And here with inauspicious omens trace 

My future walls, entitled from my name 20 

^Eneadae. With sacrificial rites 

My heavenly Mother and the Gods to aid 

Our labours I invoked, while on the shore 

I slew to sovereign Jove a lusty steer. 

A mound was nigh, where tapering cornel grew, 

And myrtle's spear-like shafts a thicket made : 

My rustic altar fain to deck with leaves, 

I plucked a sapling from the ground ; when lo ! 

A prodigy more dread than words can tell : 

Soon as the slender stem from earth was torn, 30 

A crimson moisture trickled from the root, 

And dyed the soil with gore. Chill horror shook 

My limbs, and froze the life-blood in my veins. 

Intent to learn the cause, a second shoot 

With trembling hand I snatched ; ensanguined drops 

Again flowed reeking from the bark. With fear 

Bewildered, I invoked the woodland Nymphs, 

And Mars, the guardian lord of Thracian plains, 

These awful portents to assuage, and change 

To happier aspect. As again I strove, 40 

With sturdier force and straining knee, to rend 



39-60] BOOK III. 8 1 

The stubborn roots — O horror ! shall my lips 

The dreadful truth declare ? — a piteous groan 

Burst from the mound, a voice of anguish spake : 

1 Ah ! why, ^Eneas, dost thou torture thus 

My wretched frame ? Vex not my buried corpse. 

Nor stain with sacrilege thy pious hands. 

No stranger, but a son of Troy, lies here ; 

Nor flows this blood from stocks : haste, haste to leave 

These shores accurst, this cruel land of greed — 50 

'Tis Polydore that speaks : the darts that pierced 

My life took root, and burst in bristling spears.' 

Fear paralysed my soul : aghast I stood, 
With hair erect, and lips with terror dumb. 
This Polydore did Priam, hapless sire, 
With stores of gold to Thracia's king confide, 
When foes encompassed Ilion, and distrust 
Of Dardan arms prevailed. The treacherous prince, 
As Troy grew feebler and her fortunes waned, 
Alliance with the conquering Argive made, 60 

His sacred trust betrayed, slew Polydore, 
And seized the spoil. Accursed lust of gold ! 
By thee impelled, what crime too foul for man ? 
Roused from my trance of horror, I revealed 
First to Anchises, to our leaders next, 
Heaven's awful portents, and their counsel prayed : 
All gave their voice to sail, and quit the land 

vol. 1. F 



82 THE ^NEID. [61-84 

With perfidy and guilt of murder stained. 

But first to Polydorus' ghost we pay 

The funeral rites ordained : a lofty pile 70 

Of earth, and altars to the dead, we raise, 

With mournful cypress wreathed, and fillets pale : 

The Trojan matrons, with dishevelled hair, 

Stand weeping round : we pour the steaming cups 

Of milk and consecrated blood, and thrice 

Bid with loud voice the buried shade farewell. 

Soon as unruffled waves give promise fair, 
And whispering southern gales invite to sea, 
Our shipmates throng the beach, and launch from shore : 
Dim grows the land, the cities fade from view. 80 

Girt by the waves, fair Delos, dedicate 
To Neptune and the Nereid mother, lies ; 
Rocked on the shifting tides from shore to shore 
It floated, till the grateful Archer-God 
To Myconus and Gyaros bound fast 
The wandering isle, that now, securely fixed, 
Defies the storm. Its haven of deep calm 
Receives our ships ; Apollo's hallowed seat 
We hail with awe. Here Anius, priest and king, 
With fillets round his brow and bay-leaves twined, 90 
His ancient friendship with my sire renewed, 
And frankly bade us welcome to his halls. 
Within the ancient rock-built fane I prayed : 



85-105] BOOK III. 83 

' Grant, lord of Thymbra, to our wayworn band, 
Hearths of their own, a home wherein to rest, 
A city sure and lasting ! O preserve 
Germ of the future Troy, this remnant saved 
From fierce Achilles and the Argive sword. 
Say, whither shall we steer ? what goal pursue ? 
What guidance follow ? To thy suppliants grant too 
Auspicious portents, and their hearts inspire.' 
Ere ceased my prayer, a sudden shock convulsed 
The gates, the laurel groves, and heights around : 
Then from the tripod, through the unclosed shrine, 
Mysterious murmurs broke ; we prostrate fell. 
Then spake the voice : ' Ye hardy Dardan souls, 
The ancestral soil that gave your patriarchs birth 
Shall greet with joy their progeny : go, seek 
That ancient fatherland. From thence the seed 
Of great JEneas every clime shall sway, no 

From sire to son, a countless line of kings.' 

So spake the God : a strange bewildered joy 
Thrilled every heart, and eager, question rose : 
' What means the voice ? to what primeval land 
Bids Phoebus thus our wandering host repair ? ' 
My sire revolves his legendary lore : 
' Hear me, ye chiefs/ he cries ; 'your fortunes learn : 
Amid the waves lies Crete, Jove's favoured isle, 
Mount Ida's seat, and cradle of our race — 



84 THE /EXEID. [106-127 

A teeming realm, that boasts its hundred towns. 12c 

Hence our first founder, so traditions tell, 

Great Teucer, to the Phrygian seaboard came, 

And marked his seat of empire : Ilion's towers 

Rose not as yet, nor frowned the forts of Troy : 

The sheltered vales were tenanted. Hence came 

Dread Cybele's inviolable rites — 

The Idaean grove, the Corybantian drums, 

And harnessed lions tamed to draw the car. 

Haste thither ; seek the home by heaven designed, 

Appease the winds with gifts, and steer for Crete. 130 

Nor long the voyage ; ere three suns be set, 

If Jove be kind, that haven shall ye gain/ 

Then victims to the Gods Anchises slew — 

A bull to Neptune, and to thee a bull, 

Beauteous Apollo ! to the Storm a lamb 

Of sable fleece : a white to Zephyrs fair. 

'Twas rumoured that Idomeneus, deposed 
From his ancestral throne, had fled from Crete ; 
Thus clear of foes and vacant was the land. 
Loosed from Ortygia's port we skim the main, 140 
Skirting the shores of Naxos, with its heights 
Of Bacchanalian fame ; Donysa green, 
And Paros marble-white, Olearon, 
The Cyclades amid the ocean strown, 
And islets numberless that stud the waves. 



128-150] BOOK III. 85 

Our decks with joyous acclamations ring ; 

1 For Crete and fatherland/ the seamen cry. 

Fair blows the wind and wafts us to the shore 

Where dwells an ancient tribe, Curetes named. 

Impatient of delay, I trace the walls, 150 

And designate the city, long-desired, 

Home of our race, Pergamea, and exhort 

My comrades, glorying in the well-known name, 

Their hearths to cherish and with forts defend. 

On useful labours bent, our youth began 

To seek them wives, to till and plant the soil, 

I dwellings to assign and laws to frame ; 

When lo ! engendered by the tainted air, 

A wasting sickness with insidious grasp 

Assailed the limbs; a season fraught with death 160 

Smote trees and fields with desolating blight. 

Our people yielded up their lives, or sank 

In slow decline : then Sirius scorched the plains ; 

The pastures withered, and the sickly grain 

Xo nurture gave. Anchises now enjoined 

Our toil-worn crews to cross the seas once more 

And seek new counsel from the Delian shrine : 

Whither to turn for succour — where to find 

End to our search, and from our toils repose. 

Twas night, and slumber wrapt all living things, 
When, as I lay in sleep, before me stood 171 



86 THE 2ENEID. [151-172 

The Phrygian deities, whose hallowed fonns 

My arm had rescued from the flames of Troy, 

Radiant in light, that through my casement streamed, 

Shed by the full-orbed moon. Methought they spoke, 

And calmed with soothing tones my anxious breast : 

6 The words that Phoebus from the Ortygian fane 

Would speak, he bids thee from our lips receive : 

We, who from blazing Ilion saved by thee, 

Thine arms have followed, in thy ships have crossed 

The stormy billows — we thy sons unborn 181 

Will raise to glory and with empire crown. 

Build thou for mighty dwellers mighty walls, 

Nor shrink from travel long nor labour sore. 

New mansions must be sought — not these the shores 

The Delian God foretold, nor Crete thy home. 

There is a land, by Greeks Hesperia named, 

For deeds of war and teeming soil renowned, 

Once peopled by ^Enotrian settlers, now, 

From I talus their chief, Italia named. 190 

Your destined realm is there — thence Dardanus, 

Iasius thence, your line's first founders, came. 

Go, to your aged sire this message bear, 

Which none that hears may question : bid him seek 

The land of Corythus, Ausonia's plains — 

From Crete great Jove debars you.' 

Wonder-struck 



173-193] BOOK III. 8/ 

At that dread vision and the voice divine — 

For surely 'twas no dream, but, as I thought, 

The very form and presence of the Gods, 

Their awful brows, and locks with fillets bound — 

Chill sweat bedewed my limbs : in trembling haste 

I started from my couch, my hands and voice 202 

To heaven upraised, and fed the altar fires 

With hallowed sacrifice : this service paid, 

The message to my sire with lightened heart 

I bore, and told my tale. Anchises owns 

His mind by dubious ancestries confused 

And lands misnamed : ' My son/ he cries, ' sore tried 

By Troy's hard fortunes, I bethink me well 

How oft Cassandra's solitary voice 210 

These destinies foretold ; how oft she spoke 

Of Italy and fair Hesperia's realm, 

The destined home and birthright of our race. 

But who then dreamed of Troy to Latian shores 

Transferred, or gave Cassandra's ravings heed ? 

By wiser counsel warned, to Phcebus now 

Submission let us yield.' All heard with joy 

The sage resolve, and hastened to obey. 

A few we leave behind, then spread our sails : 

Swift o'er the vasty deep our vessels bound. 220 

Now on mid-ocean launched, nor land we saw. 
Nor aus:ht save skies above and waves around : 



88 THE .ENEID. [194-218 

Herald of Night and Storm, the rain-cloud broke 
O'erhead, and darkly frowned the furrowed deep. 
Then rose the winds and swelled the mountain waves, 
Hurling our scattered galleys far and wide : 
Dark mists effaced the day and shrouded heaven, 
While through rent clouds the fitful lightning gleamed. 
Bewildered, o'er the trackless main we drive ; 
No more could Palinurus' well-trained eye 230 

Read in the skies the signs of night and morn — 
Vain all his seaman's lore, his reckoning lost. 
Three sunless days our ships before the gale 
All-helpless float ; three nights without a star. 
The fourth day breaks and land at last is spied 
In outline faint ; hills peering through the mist, 
And wreaths of waving smoke : the sails are furled, 
Our gallant seamen, straining to their oars, 
Cleave the light foam and skim the azure main. 

Saved from the storm, on island shores we land, 
By Grecian name called Strophades, the haunt 241 
Of fell Celaeno and her Harpy tribe, 
Outcast from Phineus' board, where once they fed. 
More hideous forms or deadlier scourge the wrath 
Of Gods ne'er summoned from the depths of hell : 
Like maidens is their visage, stench abhorred 
Their bodies yield, their talons forked, and gaunt 
With never-sated hunger are their cheeks. 



219-242] BOOK III. 89 

Soon as we gain the port, with joy we view 

Rich herds of oxen grazing far and wide, 250 

And flocks of goats untended dh the plains. 

With swords we make swift Onslaught, and invite 

The Gods and Jove himself our feast to share ; 

Then piling seats of turf along the shore, 

We revel in our spoils \ when suddenly 

With horrid swoop the Harpies pouncing down, 

Flap their huge pinions with discordant clang, 

Ravage the board, and all they touch befoul : 

Loathsome their odour, horrible their screech. 

Once more, within a deep sequestered dell 260 

O'er-arched with rocks and screened with clustering 

trees, 
We spread our meal, our altar-fires relume : 
Once more from distant lair a clamorous throng 
Swarms round the board, our food with noxious taint 
Polluting. Then I bid my comrades arm, 
And hand to hand assail the accursed crew : 
Prompt at my word, their swords in ambush ranged, 
And flashing bucklers in the grass they hide ; 
Scon as the rustling wings along the shore 
Are heard, Misenus from his watch-tower high 270 
With trumpet sounds the charge; our men rush forth, 
And in strange combat with the ravenous host 
Engaging, ply the steel ; but all in vain : 



90 THE ^ENEID. [243-262 

Cased in impenetrable plumes like mail 

Their scaly sides defy the falchion's edge ; 

Swiftly to flight they turn and quit their prey, 

Meats half-devoured with noisome slime denied. 

On a lone rock Celaeno sat retired, 

And croaked, curst seer, her prophecy of woe. 

1 War too !' she shrieked, ' and is it war ye wage ? 280 

War for our rifled herds and heifers slain, 

Sons of Laomedon ? And would ye drive 

The unoffending Harpies from their realm ? 

Mark now my words, and store them in your hearts — 

To Phoebus Jove himself, Phoebus to me, 

This doom predicted ; I, whom Furies hail 

Their eldest-born, to you proclaim : Ye seek 

Italians shores, and should the winds invoked 

Fair passage yield, that haven ye may gain ; 

But never town of yours shall walls enclose, 290 

Till ruthless famine, retribution due 

For this dire outrage, shall with hunger's rage 

Force you to gnaw your very boards for bread.' 

She spoke, and to the thicket winged her flight. 
Then panic fear my comrades seized, their blood 
Froze in their veins : their spirits quailed ; no more 
With arms to combat, but with prayers to sue 
For peace they urged ; whate'er the foe be deemed, 
Beings divine, or birds obscene and foul. 



263-283] BOOK III. 91 

But good Anchises raised his pious hands 300 

To heaven, and honours to the Gods enjoined : 

' Ye guardian powers/ he cries, ' avert this woe ! 

Heed not the curse, but shield the just from harm/ 

Then bade us slip our cables from the shore, 

And loose the sheets. Fair breezes swell the sails ; 

Athwart the foam-flecked billows on we glide, 

As winds impel, and pilot guides the helm — 

Far o'er the deep thy woods. Zachynthus, wave, 

Dulichium, Same, Neritos, with rocks 

High-towering, next appear : we shun the coast 310 

Of Ithaca, Laertes' craggy realm, 

And curse the soil that fierce Ulysses bred. 

Leucatia's cloud-capped height next looms in view, 

And, dread of mariners, Apollo's fane. 

Thither we steer ; the little town receives 

Our toil-worn crew, the barks are moored to shore. 

Safely to land beyond our hopes restored, 
The lustral sacrifice to Jove we pay, 
Heap high his blazing altars, and revive 
On Actian shores the athletic feats of Troy. 320 

In native guise, bare-limbed and smooth with oil, 
Our sturdy wrestlers combat; great their joy 
At Grecian forts escaped, and passage won 
Through seas that swarmed with foes. Meanwhile 
the sun 



92 THE ^ENEID. [284-304 

His yearly round had made, and winter keen 

Had ruffled with his icy blast the main. 

High on the Temple gates a shield of bronze, 

Which Abas, mighty chief, in battle bore, 

I fixed, and on the trophy graved a line ; 

6 This from the conquering Greeks y£neas won,' 330 

Then bade my gallant shipmates launch from port, 

And stretch them to their oars. With flashing stroke, 

Grew vies with crew : they sweep the waves, and soon 

Phaeacia's airy heights are lost to view. 

Skirting Epirus' coast, Chaonia's port 

And steep Buthrotus' citadel we gain. 

Here rumour passing credence meets our ears, 
That Helenus, King Priam's son, o'er Greeks 
Bore sway, succeeding to the throne and bed 
Of Pyrrhus — that Andromache once more 340 

Had found a Phrygian consort. Wonder-struck, 
I longed to meet the prince, and from his lips 
Such strange adventures hear : the ships I left, 
And sallied forth. 

It chanced that in a grove 
Without the town, where flowed a stream that feigned 
The name of Simois, Hector's widowed spouse 
Was offering sad commemorative gifts, 
With invocations to her hero's shade, 
Beside the empty tomb her love had raised 



305-325] BOOK in. 93 

With pile of verdant turf and altars twain, 350 

Incentives of her grief. She, as I came, 

Gazed on me, and, bewildered at the sight 

Of Trojan arms, with horror stood aghast ; 

Life's heat forsook her limbs : swooning awhile 

She lay \ at last found speech : ' O Goddess-born, 

Is this thy true presentment ? Hast thou come 

On no false errand ? Art thou living man ? 

Or if that light be fled, O where is he — 

My Hector ? ' As she spoke, her tears gushed forth, 

And all the grove resounded with her shrieks. 360 

Amidst her transport, few and broken words 

Dropped from my gasping lips : ' I live, 'tis true, 

A life through all extremities endured — 

Misdoubt me not : but thou — to what reverse 

From such majestic spousals art thou fallen ! 

Or hath the Fortune thou didst once enjoy 

Not ill thy state restored ? Andromache — 

Once Hector's wife — is Pyrrhus still thy lord?' 

With downcast look and faltering voice she spoke : 
1 O blest beyond all maidens of thy race, 370 

Daughter of Priam ! by the foeman's tomb, 
In sight of Ilion, happier far to die, 
Than draw the lot of servitude, and live 
Dishonoured partner of a conqueror's bed ! 
I, forced when Troy was sacked, to cross the main, 



94 THE iENEID. [326-346 

The haughty humours of Achilles' son 

Endured, and children in my bondage bore ; 

Till, lured by young Hermione, he sought 

From Lacedaemon fairer bride, and me, — 

Slave to a slave, — to Helenus consigned. 380 

But fierce Orestes, maddened by his wrongs, 

And goaded by the Furies that distract 

The guilty, at the altar of his sire 

Waylaid and slew the spoiler. Pyrrhus dead, 

Part of his realm to Helenus devolved, 

Who wide Chaonia's plains by title new 

From Trojan Chaon called, and built him walls 

And ramparts on the steep, whose names remind 

Of Pergamus and Troy. But thou — what gale 

Drove hitherward thy ships ? What chance, what God 

Impelled thee all unconscious to these shores? 391 

What of thy son Ascanius ? lives he yet ? 

Whom Troy already. . . . 

Hath he tender thoughts 
Of his lost mother? breathes there in the boy 
Aught of the antique spirit, the high soul 
Of fortitude, by great examples taught, 
His uncle Hector, or thyself his sire ? ' 

Thus choked with tears she spake, and roused anew 
Her unavailing grief, when from the walls, 
With gallant train, came Priam's royal son, 400 



347-367] BOOK III. 95 

Kind greeting gave, and to his palace-gates 

Welcomed his Trojan guests, with many a tear 

Commingling his discourse. In pensive thought 

I traced the town, the miniature of Troy : 

Its Xanthus, shrunken stream ; its fort surnamed 

Of Pergamus ; its mimic Scaean gates 

I kissed in fond remembrance of the true. 

Meanwhile the city's genial mirth refreshed 

My weary comrades, whom in stately halls 

The king with hospitable cheer regaled — 410 

Full cups in honour of the jovial God 

They quaffed, at sumptuous banquets, served on gold. 

Day after day sped on • fair breezes wooed 
Our fleets to sea, yet idly on the yards 
The canvas flapped : at length the prophet king 
I thus accosted : ' Son of Troy's high race, 
Interpreter of Heaven ! to thee are known 
The inspirations of the Clarian shrine, 
The tripods and the grove — the starry signs, 
The prescient notes and mystic flight of birds, 420 
Thy wisdom can discern. With one accord, 
Lo ! all the Gods and oracles divine 
Fair auguries announce, and point the way 
To distant Italy; the Harpy-queen 
Alone, Celaeno, on our heads invokes 
Foul famine's curse, unutterable woe. 



"" — » • 



96 THE 2ENEID. [368-390 

How may such plagues be borne, such perils shunned ? 

Speak, heavenly monitor.' No answer then 

Gave Helenus, but first with votive blood 

Of heifers duly slain his God appeased, 430 

His fillet-bands unbound, and by the hand 

Led me, with awe bewildered, to the shrine ; 

Then spake the words prophetic : ' Goddess-born, 

Doubt not, illustrious auguries attend 

Thy voyage o'er the deep — the all-puissant Sire 

Thus singles from the sortilege of Fate 

The lot decreed, thus roll in ordered round 

The wheels of Doom. Some warning words, though 

few, 
To guide thee on thy course through seas unknown 
Safe to the Ausonian haven, may I speak : 440 

Stern Fate permits no more, and Juno's ban 
Seals fast my lips. From those Italian shores 
You fondly deem so near, and count your ships 
E'en now abreast the strand, long trackless seas 
Divide you ; in Sicilian streams your oars 
Must first be plied, Ausonian waves be braved, 
The Avernian lakes, and Circe's isle explored, 
Ere, harboured in your destined city's walls, 
Ye find repose. Mark now this presage well : 
When to thy wistful gaze, beside a stream 450 

Sequestered, with overshadowing holm-oaks fringed, 



391-412] BOOK III. 97 

A sow, new-farrowed, shall appear, outstretched 
With thrice ten sucklings clustered round her teats, 
All white — alike the litter and the dam — 
There shall thy walls be built, thy rest be found. 
Nor dread the curse of boards devoured for bread ; 
The Fates shall find deliverance, and your prayers 
Gain Phoebus for your friend. But shun the coasts 
Of Italy, to our sea-bordered realm 
Contiguous — by malignant Greeks possessed. 460 
There Locrian warriors from Naricia dwell ; 
There fierce Idomeneus, with Cretan troops 
O'erawes Salentum's plain ; there, petty fort 
Of Philoctetes, Meliboean chief, 

Petilia frowns. Another warning heed : 

When on the long-sought beach thy ships are moored, 

Thine altars raised — thou, ere thy vows be paid, 

With purple robe veil reverently thy head, 

Lest aught of hostile aspect, on thy sight 

Intruding, 'mid those hallowed fires, the Gods 470 

Dishonour and thine auguries confound. 

This pious usage cherish, thou and thine — 

Be this through all posterity maintained. 

But when, departing hence, fair breezes waft 

Thy barks toward Sicily, and, nearer seen, 

Pelorus opes his rocky gates more wide ; 

Then hug the southern coast, and far to left 
vol. 1. G 



98 THE ^ENEID. [413-436 

Your galleys steer \ the treacherous northern shore 

Shun for your lives : two lands that erst were one, 

? Tis said, a mighty earthquake rent in twain — 480 

Such wondrous transformations Time hath wrought — 

The fierce sea rushed between, and tore apart 

Italia's coast, from Sicily disjoined. 

'Twixt severed fields and hamlets intervenes 

A narrow frith : the right side Scylla guards ; 

Implacable Charybdis on the left 

Sucks down its whirlpool's fathomless abyss 

The eddying waves ; by turns the refluent flood 

Dashes aloft, and heavenward hurls the spray. 

But Scylla in her cave of darkness lurks, 490 

And with her gaping jaws outstretched allures 

The unwary ships, and strands them on the rocks. 

Human her visage seems, her bosom fair, 

A woman to the waist, but, strangely joined, 

A huge sea-monster in her nether parts, 

Wolf-bellied, dolphin-tailed. 'Twere better far 

To round Pachynus' cape, with circuit wide, 

Than face the hideous beldame in her cave, 

And hear, 'mid echoing rocks, her sea-dogs howl. 

c Yet more — if aught of insight or of skill 500 

To Helenus belongs, if Phoebus guides 
His mind aright, this precept, first and last, 
Store in thy breast ; this more than all observe : 



437-460] BOOK in. 99 

To Juno, puissant Goddess, homage pay, 

To Juno pour thy vows : that haughty Queen 

With suppliant gifts propitiate, — thus at last, 

Triumphant, shalt thou reach AusomVs shore. 

That haven gained, advancing on thy way 

To Cumae and the Avernian lakes divine, 

Girt with resounding forests \ thou shalt find 510 

The frantic Priestess in her rock-hewn cave, 

Who reads the darkling future, and inscribes 

Her mystic symbols on the forest-leaves. 

The characters on those frail tablets traced 

Leaves the weird maiden on the rocky floor, 

Each in determined rank and sequence due; 

But should the ruffling wind through unclosed door 

Disperse the fleeting lines, no heed she takes 

To stay the leafy notes at random tost, 

Or weave anew her disconnected strain : 520 

Their unregarded prayers her votaries mourn, 

And curse the Sibyl's cave ; yet fail not thou, 

Though time be brief, though comrades chide delay, 

And breezes murmur in your bellying sails, 

To seek her shrine ; then win her to unseal 

Her lips, and all thy destinies declare. 

She of Italia's tribes, of wars to come — 

How dangers may be shunned, and toils endured — 

Shall warning give, and speed thee on thy way. 



100 THE yENEID. [461-482 

No more I dare disclose. Go on, brave friend, 530 
And raise to loftier heights regenerate Troy.' 

Such friendly counsel gave the Prophet-King, 
And sent withal rich presents to our ships — 
Gold, ivory carved, of silver ample store, 
With massive caldrons of Dodona's mould : 
A shirt of mail with golden links thrice coiled, 
And high-peaked helmet, with o'ershadowing plumes, 
Which Neoptolemus in battle wore. 
Gifts for Anchises, too, the monarch sends ; 
Horses and guides supplies, and martial stores, 540 
And with stout oarsmen mans our barks anew. 

Meanwhile, lest time and favouring wind be lost, 
Anchises bade his captains hoist their sails. 
Him then, with reverent mien, Apollo's priest 
Addressed : i Anchises, favoured of the Gods, 
Whom Venus made illustrious by her love, 
Twice saved from ruined Troy ! behold the land 
You seek — Ausonia ! Thither wend your way ; 
Yet Fate permits not on yon shores to rest, 
But onward steer to that far-distant port 550 

Which Phoebus hath revealed. Go, happy sire 
Of pious son ! let words of mine no more 
Detain you, nor the rising breeze delay.' 
Now, too, Andromache, sore grieved to part, 
Brings forth for young Ascanius broidered vests, 



483-504] BOOK III. 1 01 

With gold inwoven, and a Phrygian cloak, 
Meet for his princely rank ; rich tissues, too, 
From her own loom — and sadly speaks farewell : 
' Receive, dear youth, these robes my hands have 

wrought, 
Pledge of Andromache's enduring love, 560 

Last gift of her who once called Hector lord. 
O sole surviving image of my boy, 
My lost Astyanax ! — thine eyes, thy mien, 
Thine every look recalls him ; were he here, 
Now had his dawning manhood matched with thine.' 
Loath to depart, I bade, with tearful eyes, 
The royal pair farewell : ' Rest happy, ye 
Whom Fortune's fitful changes vex no more : 
Me ever-shifting Fate drives to and fro. 
Your rest is won : no stormy seas to brave, 570 

No Italy, long sought, yet distant still. 
Another Xanthus, and a second Troy, 
Built by your hands, are here ; may kindlier Fates 
Shield them from harm, nor envious Greeks assail ! 
Should ever Tiber and his bordering plains 
Yield to my wandering people home and walls, 
The sons of Dardanus in either land, 
Epirus and Hesperia, kinsmen true 
And linked by joint misfortune, as by birth, 
Shall form in heart one undivided Troy, — 580 



102 THE iEXEID. [505-528 

Long may our children's children guard the bond ! ' 
Skirting Ceraunia's heights, whence speediest sail 
Is made to Italy, we bear to sea ; 
Low sinks the sun, and shadows veil the hills. 
Then land our seamen on the welcome beach : 
While watch is kept by turns, outstretched they lie, 
And bathe their limbs in slumber's healing dews. 
Scarce had the night-hours traversed half their round, 
Ere wakeful Palinurus starts from sleep ; 
He notes each presage of the changeful sky, 590 

And strains his ear to catch the whispering breeze ; 
Then marks the constellations as they glide 
Along the silent heaven — Arcturus bright, 
The watery Hyades and the Northern Bears, 
And armed Orion with his belt of gold. 
All signs betoken calm, and from the stern 
He sounds his signal shrill. Aroused in haste, 
Our camp is all astir ; the galleys, launched, 
Spread to the breeze their snowy wings ; and now, 
As pale the stars before the reddening dawn, 600 

Dark hills and land just peering o'er the waves 
Are spied. Anchises first shouts ' Italy ! ■ 
' Ho ! Italy ! ' our joyful crews reply. 
Then fills my Sire a mighty bowl with wine. 
And from the lofty poop invokes the Gods : 
' Ye Powers supreme of Ocean, Earth, and Storms, 



529-553] BOOK III. 103 

Grant favouring gales, and waft our barks with speed.' 
Fresh blows the wind, the port expands to view, 
And on the summit towers Minerva's fane ; 
Our sails we furl, and drive our prows to shore. 610 

Scooped by the fretting of the eastern surge, 
The harbour forms a bow; projecting rocks, 
Dripping with briny spray, the inlet screen : 
Two walls of living stone enclose the sides 
With craggy battlements \ the Temple stands 
Withdrawn. First omen here that greets our eyes, 
Four milk-white steeds are grazing on the plain : 
1 War is thy badge, strange land ! ' Anchises cries, 
' War's emblems these ! the steed is trained for war ; 
Yet, tamed by skill, and coupled to the yoke, 620 
Obeys the rein — a symbol thus of peace.' 
To Pallas, Goddess of the clashing arms, 
Whom first with joy we hailed, with Phrygian robes 
Veiling our suppliant heads, our vows we pay ; 
To Argive Juno next, the solemn charge 
Of Helenus remembering, we fulfil 
The sacrificial rites : this service done, 
Veering our sailyards to the wind, we bid 
The dangerous precincts of the Greeks farewell. 
Then first Tarentum, built, if Fame be true, 630 

By Hercules, displays its glassy bay ; 
Lacinia's fane appears, and Caulon's towers, 



104 THE ^NEID. [554-578 

And Scylaceunrs coast, bestrewn with wrecks. 
Then looms Trinacrian .-Etna o'er the deep : 
A roar of mighty waves and sea-lashed cliffs 
Peals loud and far; the boiling surges leap. 
And the wild surf flies, mingled with the sand : 
1 Charybdis, as I live ! ' Anchises cries ; 
; Those ghastly rocks that Helenus foretold ! 
Now 7 to your oars, my gallant shipmates, now. 640 
Swift — or we perish ! ' As he spake, 'twas done. 
First. Palinurus snatched the helm, and drove 
Southward, with grasp of might, the creaking prow. 
All hands to southward strain with oar and sail : 
Now on the crested surge aloft we ride, 
Xow sink, the waves receding, deep as hell; 
Thrice hear the hollow roar of caves profound. 
Thrice see the dripping heavens suffused with spray. 
Wearied at last as wind and daylight fail, 
We drift, unknowing, on the Cyclops" shore. 6^z 

Wide is the port, though screened from mrrling 
winds : 
But JEma. fraught with ruin, thunders near : 
Xow shoots aloft a cloud of pitchy fumes, 
With whirling embers hot, and flakes of fibre] 
Xow belches fragments from the mountain's womb 
Disgorged, and from the rumbling crater pours 
The molten rock. As ancient legends tell. 



579-599] BOOK III. 105 

Beneath that mighty pile Enceladus, 

His giant bulk with lightning half consumed, 

Imprisoned lies • while yEtna overlaid 660 

Through her rent caverns vents the smouldering flame. 

Oft as the monster shifts his aching side, 

Trinacria quakes through all her shuddering frame, 

And smoke enshrouds the sky. We all night long 

Couched in the woods, by hideous phantoms scared, 

And sounds mysterious, lay ; no light appeared, 

Xor sheen of stars, nor constellation's blaze, 

But murky clouds and mists that veiled the moon. 

Scarce had the dawning Morn from eastern skies 
Dispelled the shadows dank, when from the woods, 
Startling our sight, a figure strange and wild, 671 

Human in shape, yet wasted to a ghost 
By dire distress, in miserable guise, 
With suppliant hands outstretched, approached the 

shore. 
We stood and gazed : a form with filth begrimed, 
Long haggard beard, and garments tagged with thorns \ 
Yet in his aspect seemed the wretch a Greek, 
Sometime a soldier in the wars of Troy. 
Soon as our Dardan garb and arms he spied, 
Awhile by terror paralysed he stood; 680 

Then with impetuous haste advanced, and thus 
With tears adjured us : i By the Gods above — 



106 THE /ENEID. [600-620 

The stars — this vital air and light of heaven — 

take me, Teucrians, bear me where ye list — 

1 reck not whither ! True, from Greece I came 
With that great armament that sailed for Troy 

To spoil your homes — for this, my crime confessed. 
Fling, if ye will, my body to the waves ; 
Drown me in Ocean's depths — 'twill lighten death 
To die, if die I must, by hands of men.' 690 

Imploring thus the stranger clasped my knees, 
And grovelled at my feet. His name, his race, 
By what malignant Fortune thus pursued, 
We bade him tell : my Sire the suppliant's hand 
Grasped in his own ; that pledge new courage gave, 
And, bolder grown, he spake : ' My native land 
Was Ithaca ; Ulysses, ill-starred chief, 
My captain ; Achaemenides my name. 
My father, Adamastus, in his need 
To Ilium sent me — happier far for me 700 

Had Fortune left unchanged our lowly home ! 
Here did my comrades, as they fled dismayed 
From that foul den, unthoughtful in their haste 
Leave me defenceless in the Cyclops' cave ; 
A vast and murky vault, with carnage steeped 
Arid revelries of blood. He (may the Gods 
From such detested presence rid the earth !) 
Of loftiest stature, towering to the clouds, 



621-643] BOOK III. 107 

Abhorring sight and speech of mortal men, 

Feasts on the reeking entrails of the slain. 710 

These eyes beheld him grasp with his huge hand 

Two of our hapless crew, as stretched he lay 

Along the cave, then dash them on the rocks, 

Drenching the spattered pavement with their gore. 

I saw their limbs that quivered as they dripped 

With blood betwixt his jaws. Not unavenged 

Our comrades fell ; nor did Ulysses brook 

Such outrage, nor his native craft belie. 

Soon as in sleep supine the monster lay, 

With feasting gorged and stupefied with wine, 720 

Extended all at length, and belching forth 

The blood-smeared fragments of his foul repast, — 

With supplications to the Gods for aid, 

And casting lots, we hemmed the giant round ; 

Then pierced with sharply-pointed stake his eye — 

That single orb which 'neath his grisly brow 

Glowed like the sun's red disc or Aigive shield : 

Such vengeance took we for our murdered friends. 

But fly, unhappy strangers — fly with speed, 

And cut the hawsers of your lingering ships ; 730 

For, vast as Polyphemus, and as fierce 

As that grim shepherd who in mountain fold 

Shelters his fleecy flock and milks his ewes, 

A hundred giants more of Cyclop mould, 



108 THE /ENEID. [644-665 

Unutterably savage, haunt these shores 

And range the mountains. Thrice the moon hath filled 

Her horn since I, in lonely thickets hid, 

Crouching in caves and dens of beasts, have borne 

A loathsome life ; beholding on the rocks 

Those monstrous forms, and shuddering as I heard 

Their voices and the thunder of their tread. 741 

The innutritious berries of the brake, 

The stony cornel, and wild roots uptorn, 

Were all my sustenance. Ever on the watch, 

Your ships I spied, and, heedless whom they bore, 

I flung me at your feet — enough for me 

To 'scape the clutches of that fiendish horde, 

Whatever the death you choose to end my woes/ 

Scarce ceased his words when on the topmost ridge 
Dread Polypheme himself amidst his flock, 750 

Heaving along his ponderous bulk, was seen, 
As to the well-known shore he wound his way — 
A hideous, huge, misshapen, sightless form ! 
A rugged pine-stem for a staff he bore ; 
His sheep, sole joy and solace of his grief, 
Around him flocked. When now he reached the sea, 
Gnashing his teeth, the monster with deep groan 
From his void socket washed the clotted gore ; 
Then plunging in the waves, whose highest flood 
His flanks scarce wetted, through the billows strode. 



666-686] BOOK III. 109 

With terror seized, we hurriedly aboard 761 

The stranger take, who well had earned release, 
And cut our cables free without a word ; 
Then bending to our oars we pull for life, 
And sweep the main. The giant heard the sound, 
And wheeled about, impatient to pursue ; 
But in his effort foiled to clutch our ships, 
And by the Ionian tide o'ermatched in speed, 
He raised a shout so mighty that the sea 
Throbbed with the thunderous sound through all her 
waves: 770 

Ausonia's distant plains with terror quaked, 
And ^Etna's winding caves flung back the roar. 

Roused at his call, the whole Cyclopean host, 
From hills and woods descending, thronged the strand . 
Along the beach we saw, with scowling brows, 
Discomfited, the sons of ^tna stand — 
An awful conclave ! lifting their huge heads 
Like giant oaks or cone-crowned cypresses, 
Jove's lofty forest, or Diana's grove. 

Reckless with fear our crews were fain to spread, 
Drift where they might, their canvas to the gale ; 
Yet dared we not, by Helenus forewarned, 782 

Midway 'twixt Scylla and Charybdis steer, 
With equal risk and imminence of death 
On either hand : then backward we resolved 



110 THE iENEID. [6S7-705 

To turn our sails, when suddenly upsprung, 

Fresh from Pelorus' straits, a northern breeze. 

We skirt Pantagia with its basin scooped 

From living rock, the Megarean bay, 

And Thapsus, low-sunk coast : each land we passed 

Did Achaemenides our guide declare — 791 

Reversing now the course he traced before, 

Companion of Ulysses, ill-starred chief. 

An island stretched athwart Trinacria's bay, 
Facing Plemmyrium's storm-vexed haven, lies, 
By ancients called Ortygia. Here, 'tis said, 
Alpheiis, who in distant Elis springs, 
Winding his subtle way beneath the sea, 
With thee, Arethusa, mingling, yields 
His waters to the main. Forewarned, we pay 800 
Due honours to the Gods that guard the isle ; 
Then leave behind Helorus and the plains 
That drink luxuriance from his brimming flood, 
Pachynus with his spurs of jutting crag, 
And Camarina's towers beheld afar, 
By Fate declared immovable for aye. 
The wide Geloan plains in turn are seen, 
And Gela, from its mighty river named. 
Next towering Acragas stands out to view 
For high-bred coursers famed ; and past thy shores. 
Selinus, rich with palmy groves, we glide : 811 



706-71S] BOOK III. Ill 

Then skirt with war}* prow the rocks that lurk 

In Lilybaean shallows, and at last 

At Drepanum a joyless haven find. 

For, wearied as I was and vexed with storms, 

My Sire, beloved companion and support 

In all my griefs, Anchises here I lost. 

Ah ! why from thousand perils saved in vain, 

Dear father, thus forsake thy toil-worn son ? 

Of all the terrors Helenus foretold, S20 

Of all Cekeno's woes, was none like this, 

My heaviest sorrow and my last \ here, too, 

The close of all my wanderings : sailing hence 

Some friendly God impelled me to your shores. 

^•Eneas thus, while all gave heedful ear, 
His destinies, ordained of Heaven, declared ; 
His wanderings all recounted, — here at last, 
Ending his tale, in silence he reposed. S2S 



. iji. 



THE ^NEID 



BOOK IV. 



VOL. I. 



[i-i3 



BOOK IV. 



But now the stricken queen, through all her veins, 

Feels the keen pang, and pines with secret fires : 

The hero's worth, the glories of his race, 

Fill all her thoughts : his voice, his looks, are graved 

Deep on her heart, — no rest her pain allows. 

Soon as the morrow's sun with early light 

Illumed the earth, and chased the shadows dark, 

She to her sister's sympathising ear 

Her sorrows told : ' Say, Anna, sister mine, 

Whence these distempered dreams that haunt my soul ? 

What stranger-guest is here ? What stately mien ! 1 1 

What valorous heart ! What prowess in the field ! 

If coward fear bespeaks degenerate race, 

'Twere no vain thought to deem his birth divine. 

Ah me ! what hardships he endured ! what storms 



Il6 THE 2ENEID. [14-37 

Of Fate, and toils of long-protracted war ! 

But for my fixed resolve, that knows no change, 

No more to bind me with connubial ties, 

Since my first youthful love by death was crossed — 

But that the bridal torch and rites I loathe — 20 

This once might weakness find excuse to yield. 

Yes ! Anna, let me own : since murder foul 

Our altar stained, and by a brother's hand 

Sichoeus fell, this Trojan chief alone 

Hath touched my wavering heart and thrilled my veins : 

I feel new stirrings of that long-quenched flame. 

But oh ! may earth her yawning gulfs disclose, 

May Jove's red lightning hurl me to the shades — 

The pallid shades of Hell and Night profound — 

Ere deed of mine profane chaste Honour's laws ! 30 

No ! let him hold it still who first subdued 

My virgin heart — still guard it in his grave ! ' 

She ceased, dissolved in tears ; then Anna made 
Reply : ' Dear sister — dearer than my life ! — 
Must thy sweet youth in lonely sadness wane, 
Nor children dear, nor love's sweet transports know ? 
Think you such cares disturb the buried dust ? — 
'Twas meet no suitor once thy widowed heart 
Should please, nor Libya's sons, nor lords of Tyre — 
Iarbas was disdained, and many a chief 40 

Whom Afric, famed for high achievements, bred : 



3S-5S] BOOK IV. 117 

But why thus struggle with congenial love ? 

Think how thine infant realm is girt with foes : 

Here dwells the unsubdued Goetulian ; there 

Xumidians, wild as their unbitted steeds. 

Inhospitable wastes, and Syrtes drear 

Thy frontier bound, and Barce's desert-tribes 

Marauding far and wide : why speak of Tyre 

With war fermenting, and thy brother's threats ? 

'Twas Juno's hand, I ween, and Gods benign, 50 

That cast these Dardan rovers on our shores. 

With Troy by wedlock linked, to what proud heights 

Might Carthage rise ! — what power thy Punic realm 

Attain ! — what glory from their arms allied ! 

Do thou with sacrifices first the Gods 

Propitiate, then thy hospitable bent 

Indulge at will, detaining still thy guests 

With pretexts fair — while wintry tempests rave, 

While turbulent Orion stirs the main, 

And frowning skies bode ill to shattered ships.' 60 

Such words heaped fuel on her bosom's fire, 
Inspired new hope, and loosed the bonds of shame. 
Then to the Temple haste the sisters twain, 
And peace from Heaven implore from shrine to shrine. 
Choice victims from the fleecy flock they slay, 
To thee, Lyaeus — to the Delian God — 
To Ceres, mother of sage laws, nor least 



Il8 THE 2ENEID. [59-79 

To Juno, guardian of the nuptial bond. 

Peerless in beauty stands the Tyrian queen, 

With chalice in her hands, and pours the wine 70 

Between a snow-white heifer's budding horns ; 

With stately step before the altar moves, 

Her votive offering day by day renews, 

Bends o'er the reeking sacrifice, and scans 

The quivering entrails with divining eye. 

Ah ! bootless auguries, and prophets blind ! 

The love-distracted soul what prayers can soothe ? 

What shrine its pangs allay? the insidious flame 

Meanwhile is mining at the bosom's core, 

And inly bleeds the immedicable wound. 80 

With anguish Dido burns, and through the town 

Distracted roves — like arrow-stricken hind, 

Whom, wandering heedless in Dictaean glades, 

Some shepherd, aiming from afar, hath pierced, 

And left his shaft, unknowing, in the wound : 

O'er Cretan glens and brakes she maddening flies, 

Fixed in her side the dart her life-blood drains. 

Conducting now her guest, the queen displays 

Her Tyrian wealth, her city's ample stores, 

Strives oft to speak, but checks her thought half-told. 

Now seeks the oft-repeated feast at eve, 91 

And craves, infatuate, from his lips to hear 

Troy's fate once more, and on each utterance hangs. 



80-103] BOOK IV. 119 

Parting at length, when sinks the paling moon, 
And setting stars admonish to repose, 
In her lone hall she pines on couch forlorn, 
Still sees the absent form, still hears the voice ; 
Or fondles young Ascanius in her arms, 
And, ravished by the image of his sire, 
Cheats, self-beguiled, her heart's unuttered pain. 100 
Meanwhile the rising towers unfinished stand ; 
The youth no more to martial exercise 
Are trained ; their half-completed works they leave, 
The ramparts and the port — and motionless 
The mighty engines hang that towered to Heaven. 
Perceiving now the queen by such fierce plague 
Possessed, e'en Honour's self to Love enslaved, 
The spouse of Jove beloved to Venus spoke : 
' A noble triumph truly hast thou won, 
Rich trophies, vast renown, thy Son and Thou : no 
Two Deities to work one woman's fall ! 
Nor pass unheeded thy suspicious looks 
On Carthage cast : but why this bootless feud ? 
Why strive for aye ? Nay, rather let us make 
Fast treaty, and with wedlock seal the bond : 
The end thy heart did covet thou hast gained — 
Through every vein enamoured Dido burns : 
Then let us rule as one the nations twain ; 
A Phrygian husband's sway the queen shall own, 



120 THE 2ENEID. [104-126 

And Carthage to thy son for dowry bring.' 120 

Then Venus (well her rival's aim she knew 
To found her Italy on Libyan shores) 
Replied : ' Such truce 'twere madness to decline ; 
Who would not rather choose thee friend than foe ? — 
Might Fortune grant thy well-laid scheme success. 
But doubtful destinies perplex me still ; 
Will Jove permit that Troy and Carthage leagued 
Henceforth one people form, one rule obey ? 
His consort thou • 'tis thine of right to know 
That sovereign will, and urge thy suit. Go on; 130 
Thy guidance I obey.' ' That charge be mine/ 
The haughty queen replied : ' Hear now the means 
Meet for our end. Soon as to-morrow's sun 
W T ith his first orient rays unveils the world, 
Thy Dardan hero and the ill-starred queen 
Prepare for hunting in the woodland glade. 
Then, while the foresters speed to and fro, 
And spread their toils for game, will I a flood 
Of murky rain and hail pour swiftly down, 
And rend the skies with tempest; all the train 140 
Shall flee for shelter 'mid the thickening gloom : 
The queen and chieftain in a cave retired 
Shall meet, where I, of thy consent assured, 
In wedlock's ties will bind the amorous pair ; 
And Hymen shall his genial presence lend.' 



127-147] BOOK IV. 121 

She spoke, and, laughing Venus smiled assent, 
Pleased to behold her rival's wiles unmasked. 

Now from her ocean bed as Dawn arose, 
Forth with the earliest light a youthful band 
Pours from the palace-gates, equipped for chase 150 
With nets and snares and hunter's steel-tipped poles, 
Keen-scented hounds, and mounted Moorish grooms. 
The queen within her chamber tarrying long, 
Her Tyrian courtiers at the gates attend : 
Impatiently her palfrey champs the bit, 
Proud of his crimson housings pranked with gold : 
She comes at length, with all her courtly train, 
In richly-broidered vest of Tyrian dye ; 
Gold from her quiver's polished surface gleams, 
Her vest is clasped, her hair is bound, with gold. 160 
There, too, amid his Phrygian compeers blithe, 
lulus rides ; but far surpassing all 
In manly grace, zEneas joins the throng. 
Fair as Apollo when from Xanthus' side 
And plains of wintry Lycia he returns 
Exulting to his native Delian isle, 
Renews the sports and leads the dance once more, 
While Dryopes and Cretans shout for joy, 
And painted Agathyrsi hail their king — 
His flowing locks with leafy circlet bound, 170 

And twined with gold, he treads the Cynthian heights 



122 THE iENEID. [148-171 

With rattling quiver round his shoulders flung : 
So graceful moved, such beauteous form and mien 
^Eneas wore ! 

When now the forest heights 
The hunters gained, lo ! from their craggy lairs 
The mountain-goats dashed wildly down the rocks ; 
While, rallying from the hills their antlered herd, 
The stags in dust-encircled squadrons swept 
Adown the vale. On mettled steed elate 
Ascanius heads the chase ; his mates outstripped 180 
He passes one by one, and feebler game 
Disdaining, fain would see the mountain-boar 
Or tawny lion from the hills descend. 

But now with gathering storm the welkin roars, 
And hail and rain in mingled floods descend. 
With sudden rout dispersed, the Trojan youth 
And Tyrian gallants all for shelter flee; 
While down the mountains rush the swollen rills. 
The Dardan chief and Dido, tempest-driven, 
Meet in a cave retired; then Juno, queen 190 

Of Hymenaeal mysteries, and Earth 
Accordant signal give : the conscious Heavens 
Those spousals saw and flashed with meteor-fires, 
And wildly shrieked the Wood-nymphs on the steep. 
Ah ! rueful day, with sorrow fraught and death ! 
Henceforth nor fame nor fair report the queen 



172-195] BOOK IV. 123 

Holds dear, nor strives her passion to conceal, 
But cloaks with wedlock's specious name the sin. 

Meanwhile through Libyan cities Rumour flies — 
Rumour, that swiftest of all mischief works, 200 

Grows as she runs, and gathers strength from speed : 
Cowering and frail at birth ; soon bolder grown, 
She stalks erect and lifts her front to heaven. 
This, last-born sister of her Titan sons 
Enceladus and Coeus, — mother Earth, 
Resentful of the Olympian tyrant's wrong, 
Brought forth — a monster swift of foot and wing, 
Hideous and huge; but, wondrous to relate, 
For every feather in her plumy wings, 
So many piercing eyes and wakeful ears, 210 

So many mouths she wears, and clattering tongues. 
Midway 'twixt earth and sky the livelong night 
Buzzing she flits, nor shuts her w r akeful eye : 
By day on rooftree perched her watch she keeps, 
Or haunts, a shape of fear, some city's towers \ 
As prompt false news to forge as spread the true. 
Among the nations now a tangled tale 
Of fact with fiction blent, the fiend diffused, — 
That great ^Eneas, Trojan-born, had come, 
Whom beauteous Dido thought not shame to wed : 
That in base dalliance all the winter long, 221 

Mindless of realm and fame, the lovers toyed \ — 



124 THE ^NEED. [196-217 

Such tidings blazed the foul-mouthed pest abroad. 

To King Iarbas next in haste she flies, 
Taunts him with burning words, and fires his soul. 
Son of great Hammon he, by ravished nymph 
Of Barbary, a hundred temples vast, 
A hundred altars through his wide domains 
To his divine progenitor had raised, 
And guarded day and night their sleepless fires; 230 
With blood of fleecy victims reeked the soil, 
With floral garlands were the gates adorned. 
He now in bitterness of soul, incensed 
With that vile rumour, to his sovereign God 
With outstretched hands before the altar prayed : 
' All-puissant Jove, to whom our Moorish tribes, 
Carousing on their broidered couches, pour 
The full Lyaean goblets, seest thou this 
Dread Sire ? or, when thy lightning-bolts are hurled, 
Start we in vain affright, and stand aghast 240 

At empty threaten ings and innoxious fires ? 
This woman — late a wanderer on these shores, 
Who to our sufferance owed her petty town 
And strip of purchased soil, disdains my suit, 
And takes ./Eneas to her bed and throne. 
He, like another Paris, with his train 
Of unmanned sycophants, with essenced hair, 
And Lydian bonnet round his temples tied, 



218-242] BOOK IV. 125 

Gloats on his prize : we on thy shrines, forsooth, 
Heap gifts, and homage to a phantom yield V 250 

Him as he prayed and to the altar clung, 
Jove heard, and, gazing down on Carthage, saw 
The lovers, mindless of their better fame ; 
Then to Cyllenius thus his mandate gave : 
' Go, bid the Zephyrs waft thee : fly with speed, 
And bear my message to the Trojan chief, 
Who in yon Tyrian city lingers yet, 
Of Fate regardless and his destined realm. 
Xot such his beauteous mother vouched her son, 
Twice snatched, by her fond arm, from Grecian swords. 
To master Italy she deemed him born, 261 

Convulsed with empire's throes, and fierce with war — 
One who old Teucer's race to loftier heights 
Should raise, and bend all nations to his sway. 
If, faint of heart and reckless of renown 
The sire, must young Ascanius lose the prize — 
His destined crown and heritage of Rome ? 
What means this dallying on a hostile shore, 
Ausonia lost, the Latian throne disdained ? — 
Speak in one word my mandate : let him sail.' 270 

Thus Jove : obedient Mercury on his feet 
First binds the golden sandals tipped with wings, 
That, soaring through the air, o'er earth and sea, 
Fleet as the wind transport him : next he takes 



126 THE yENEID. [243-265 

The wand, that conjures up pale ghosts from hell, 

Or thrusts unbodied spirits to the shades, 

Sheds or dispels soft slumber, and unseals 

The eyes of death. With this he drives the winds 

Before him in his flight, and breasts the storm. 

Now, swooping down, he sees the towering peaks 280 

Of hardy Atlas, who upholds the skies — 

Atlas, whose pine-crowned head, for ever swathed 

In clouds, is buffeted by blast and storm \ 

The mantling snows around his shoulders fall, 

Adown his hoary chin the torrent streams, 

And stiff with icicles his grisly beard. 

Here first with balanced wings the herald God 

Tarried awhile, then headlong to the deep 

He plunged, like sea-bird that, with lowly flight 

Skimming the waves, pursues its finny prey. 290 

So darts Cyllenius down 'twixt earth and sky, 

Cleaving the winds, till on the sandy shore 

Of Afric rest at last his winged feet. 

^Eneas he beholds new domes and towers 

Constructing, where the Libyan huts had stood. 

A falchion, starred with jasper, graced his side, 

A mantle round his shoulders loosely hung, 

That blazed with Tyrian purple ; each the gift 

Of bounteous Dido ; her fair hand had wTOUght 

The tissue, interlaced with threads of gold. 300 



266-292] BOOK IV. 127 

Straightway the God broke forth : i Is this thy task, 

Besotted with a wife, to build the walls 

Of Carthage, and her beauteous town adorn, 

Reckless of sovereign rights and nobler cares ? 

Me the dread lord of Heaven and Earth hath sent, 

Myself a God, to bear his stern behest, — 

What dost thou, loitering on this Libyan shore ? 

If dead to fame thy recreant spirit shrinks 

From toil, bethink thee of Ascanius, reft 

Of Italy and Rome's imperial crown.' 310 

No more Cyllenius spoke, but, swiftly lost 

To mortal vision, vanished into air. 

Confounded at the sight ^Eneas stood, 
With hair erect and utterance choked by fear : 
Awed by the imperious mandate of the Gods, 
Fain would he fly from that enchanted land ; 
But how approach the queen ? how frame the words 
Of parting, and her fierce resentment brave ? 
Full many a project in his wavering mind 
He ponders o'er and o'er : at length resolved, 320 
Calls Mnestheus and Sergestus to his side, 
With brave Cloanthus, — and imparts his plan : 
Bids them in secret fit the ships for sea 
With arms and stores, and muster all the crews \ 
Dissembling well their aim : himself the while, 
Since unsuspecting Dido fears no ill, 



■ 



128 THE iENEID. [293-315 

Nor deems such ardent love can ever change, 
Will seize some genial mood, some moment fair, 
His purpose to disclose. Their chief's design 
All hail with joy, and at his bidding speed. 330 

But (ah ! what art can baffle love ?) the queen 
First marked the notes of parting, and alarmed, 
While all seemed fair around, their wiles foreknew — 
The same malignant Rumour to her ears 
Brought news of ships prepared and flight decreed. 
In ecstasy of rage, to reason lost, 
She scours the town ; like Bacchanal possessed, 
Whom at triennial orgies of her God 
The wild Lyaean shout to madness goads, 
While dark Cithaeron stuns the night with cries : 340 
With burst of wrath JEneas she assails : 

' Perfidious ! didst thou hope to mask thy crime, 
And undetected from my kingdom steal ; 
Regardless of our love, thy plighted faith, 
And Dido left a cruel death to die ? 
And canst thou now beneath bleak winter's star 
Refit thy ships and tempt the northern gales ? 
Inhuman ! did no foreign shores invite, 
Were Troy, your ancient home, a kingdom still, 
Say, would those stormy waves be crossed for Troy? 
Or is it me you flee from? By these tears, 351 

By thine own hand, ^Eneas — since to me 



316-335] BOOK IV. 1 29 

Is nothing left, alas ! to call mine own — 

By our brief season of connubial joy, 

If aught my loyal sendee hath deserved, 

If aught in me thy fancy ever charmed, 

Pity my ruined fortunes, and renounce, 

If prayers can touch thee yet, that fell resolve. 

For thee the Libyan chiefs and Nomad tribes 

My rule abhor; for thee is Tyre my foe; 360 

For thee was honour lost, and my proud name. 

Exalted once to heaven, is forfeit now — 

By thee forsaken, left alone to die, 

My husband — if that title be denied, 

At least my guest — to whom shall Dido turn ? 

Here must I tarry till Pygmalion come 

To raze my walls, or that Gaetulian chief 

Iarbas bind me captive to his car ? 

Hadst thou but left me ere thy flight some pledge 

Of love, whose features might his sire recall — 370 

Some young ^Eneas in my halls- to play — 

Not all undone and friendless had I seemed.' 

Awhile she paused. He, warned by Jove, main- 
tained 
Unaltered mien, repressed with stern control 
His bosom's pangs, then briefly made reply : 
' Remind me as thou wilt of high desert 
And generous service, nought from me, great queen, 

VOL. I. I 



130 THE ^NEID. [336-356 

Shall meet denial : never from my heart 

Shall fade Elissa's form while conscious life 

Beats in my breast, while throbs this breathing frame. 

Brief answer for my cause I fain would make ; 381 

Mine was no base device — dismiss the thought — 

Unnoticed to depart and steal to sea : 

Nor hither did I come in suitor's guise, 

Nor ever to such compact pledged my vow : 

Would Fate, indulgent to my longings, mould 

My life, and shape its current to my will, 

First would I choose to build old Troy anew, 

Preserve those dear remains, raise Priam's towers 

From dust, and vanquished Pergamus restore; 390 

But now to Italy the ^Eolian king 

Apollo bids our lingering fleet repair ; 

To Italy the Lycian oracles 

Repeat the call — our home, our hearts are there. 

If Carthage, Dido, to thy soul be dear, 

If beauteous in thine eyes these Libyan towers, 

Why grudge Ausonia to our homeless race ? 

We, too, crave new dominions : oft as night 

Robes earth in shade, and lights her starry fires, 

My sire Anchises comes, a troubled ghost, 400 

Scares me with dreams, and robs my couch of rest; 

The wrongs of young Ascanius urge me sore, 

Reft of his destined heritage and crown. 



357-376] BOOK IV. 131 

E'en now the herald of the Gods from Jove 
Sent down (by either awful head I swear), 
Brought Heaven's imperious mandate from the skies : 
His form all radiant gliding through the gates 
These eyes beheld \ his voice yet fills my ears. 
Embitter not with taunts thy heart and mine — 
Fate rules, not choice, my course.' 

Him as he spoke 
With looks askance and eyes that wildly glared 411 
The queen beheld ; surveyed him o'er and o'er 
With silent scorn • then burst her wrath in words : 
1 No Goddess-mother thee, false traitor, bare ; 
No ancient Dardanus was sire of thine : 
Thee Caucasus in stony dens begat, 
Dugs of Hyrcanian tigress gave thee suck. 
Why strive to hide my pain ? what heavier woe 
Could e'er befall me? Did he yield one sign 
Of sorrow? did he change a look, or breathe 420 

Sigh for my grief or pity for my love ? 
What wrongs can rival mine ? Nor Juno now, 
Nor her Saturnian lord, my cause regard 
With righteous eyes — no trust in God or men ! 
This ruined castaway I made my guest, 
Fool that I was, and gave him half my realm, 
His famished crews revived, and saved his ships. 
Ha ! Furies ! how ye whirl my maddened brain ! — 



132 THE iENEID. [377"398 

But now Apollo, mighty augur, speaks ; 
Now Lycian oracles ; now straight from Jove 430 
Comes Heaven's own envoy with some mandate dread. 
Such cares, forsooth ! distract — such thoughts employ 
The leisure of the Immortals ! Be it so. 
I question not thy words, nor bid thee stay. 
Fly where thou wilt ; to Italy begone ; 
Pursue thy Latian empire o'er the waves, — 
Doomed, as I hope, to pay, if Heaven be just, 
The forfeit of thy crimes, dashed on the rocks, 
And calling in despair on Dido's name. 
My vengeance shall pursue thy steps with fire ; 440 
And when pale Death dissolves this breathing frame, 
My ghost shall haunt thee still : thy guilty head 
Shall wrath o'ertake, and in the shades below 
My spirit shall exult to learn thy doom.' 
Abruptly here she ceased, then sickening, turned 
And left him sore amazed ; by fear constrained, 
Yet longing much to speak : the fainting queen 
Her maidens to the stately chamber bear. 

But good ^Eneas, though he yearned to soothe 
Her grief, and speak soft pity to her soul, 450 

Himself heart-stricken and distraught with love, — 
Yet to the fleet, submissive to the Gods, 
At once repaired. The Trojans all alert 
Were hauling down their vessels from the beach ; 



399-420] BOOK IV. 1 33 

Careened and trim for sea, the galleys ride ; 

While poles yet leafy from the forest brought 

Are fashioned into oars : all speed the work, 

In haste to sail. From every side a throng 

Comes flocking from the town and crowds the shore : 

Like ants that, mindful of their winter's need, 460 

A pile of grain beset, and to their store 

Bear off the provender : along the plain 

Moves the dark troop, and down the narrow track 

Impels the load • with shoulders firmly set, 

Some heave the ponderous mass, some drill the ranks 

Or urge the lagging carriers ; — all the scene 

Is brisk with toil and animate with life. 

What then, unhappy Dido, were thy thoughts ? 

What sighs burst from thee, as, from yon high tower, 

Thine eyes beheld the swarming busy port, 470 

The hurrying crews, and turmoil of the sea ? 

Ah ! tyrant love, what heart withstands thy sway ? 

By thee constrained, the queen submits once more 

To supplicate, to weep, — nor leaves untried 

Aught that may move her lover, ere she die : 

' See, Anna/ she exclaims, ' how thronged the 
shore ! 
What stir ! what haste ! Already to the wind 
Their sails are set, their decks with garlands hung. 
This sorrow that I hoped not to escape, 



134 THE ^ENEID. [421-443 

I lack not strength to bear ; but, sister mine. 480 

This only favour grant me 5 for to thee 

That faithless one compliant ever proved, 

His thoughts to thee divulged ; none skilled like thee 

To seize occasion meet and gain his ear ; 

Go now and parley with our haughty foe : 

' I never leagued with Greece ; I swore no oath 
At Aulis to destroy the Trojan name; 
I sent no fleet to Ilion : ne'er profaned 
Anchises' tomb, nor vexed his honoured shade. 
What means this haste? in pity to my love 490 

Beseech him — 'tis my last request — to wait 
Awhile, till wind and sea propitious prove : 
The wedlock he renounced I ask not now, 
Nor urge him to forego his Latian realm ; 
A little breathing-time is all I crave, 
Some respite from the fever of my brain, 
Till my sad heart be taught its grief to bear. 
This favour, sister dear, in pity grant \ 
Full well my death that service shall repay.' 

Such was her prayer, which Anna to the chief 500 
Once and again conveved, but all in vain : 
No tears can melt him, no entreaties move 
His unrelenting mind ; the Fates forbid, 
And the stern God to pity steels his ears. 
As when, with rude encounter, Alpine blasts 



444-466] BOOK IV. 135 

Strive to uprend some ancient sturdy oak — 

Hoarsely the tempest roars ; the lofty stem 

Is bowed, and foliage, from the summit torn, 

Bestrews the plain \ yet rooted in the rock 

The giant stands, his feet as deeply sunk 510 

In earth as towers on high his leafy crown, — 

So stern of mind ^Eneas, though assailed 

By ceaseless plaints that rend his heart with grief, 

Xor supplication heeds, nor idle tears. 

Then Dido sinks j affrighted at her fate, 
She prays for death, and loathes the light of heaven. 
Dire prodigies confirm her stern resolve : 
As on the incense-breathing shrine she laid 
Her gifts, the hallowed chalice — awful sign ! — 
Grew black, the wine was curdled into gore ! — 520 
Dread secret, e'en to sister's ears untold ! 
Yet more : within the regal precincts stood, 
Memorial of her lord, a marble fane, 
With wreaths of snow-white wool and garlands hung ; 
Thence to her startled ear, at dead of night, 
With awful voice, Sichaeus seemed to call ; 
While from the roof the melancholy owl, 
With long-drawn wailing note, his death-dirge shrieked ; 
And on her memory flashed terrific woes, 
Denounced by seers of old. ^Eneas now 530 

In dreams pursues her, and to madness goads. 



136 THE iENEID. [467-490 

Alone through dreary wastes an endless way 
She roves, and seeks her Tyrian friends in vain, — 
Like Pentheus, when he sees the banded Fiends, 
Two citadels of Thebes, two suns in heaven : 
Or like Orestes in the tragic scene, 
When from his mother's grisly shape he flies ; 
She with red torch and scorpion thong pursues ; 
While scowling Furies on the threshold stand. 

W T hen now with frenzy fired, and crushed with grief, 
The queen resolved to die, the mode and time 541 
Herself devised ; then to her sister spoke, 
Cloaking her stern design with tranquil brow : 
' Rejoice, dear sister, I have found a spell 
To win him to my arms, or cure my love. 
Hard by the setting sun, where Ocean ends, 
The far-secluded ^Ethiopians dwell, 
Where Atlas on his shoulders heaves the skies 
With stars bespangled. Hither from that land 
Has come a priestess of Massylian race, 550 

Who the far-famed Hesperian garden kept, 
Watched o'er the golden-fruited tree, and soothed 
The dragon guard with honey-moistened cates 
And poppies' drowsy syrup. She, with charms, 
Can love-sick bosoms ease or rack with pain ; 
Arrest the planet's course ; turn back the stream ; 
Or summon from the tomb night-wandering ghosts : 



491-508] BOOK IV. 137 

By her the yawning earth is rent with groans, 

And the tall ash from mountain-summit hurled : 

By Heaven and thy sweet self, dire need alone 560 

Drives me to lean on Sorcery's baneful aid. 

This charge be thine : within the palace courts, 

But open to the sky, do thou construct 

A lofty funeral pyre ; and on the mound 

The arms, the vesture, and equipments lay 

Which he, base recreant, in my chamber left : 

Above them place the bridal couch, sad cause 

Of my undoing. Fain would I destroy 

All traces of that arch-deceiver's guilt. 

The priestess thus enjoins.' As Dido spake, 570 

A deadly paleness o'er her visage passed : 

Yet Anna little dreamed what desperate thoughts 

Her soul possessed — what deadly purpose lurked 

In those strange rites, — nor feared she worse mischance 

Than when Sichaeus died. Her sister's charge 

Unfearing she fulfils. 

And now the pile 
On framework of cleft oak and pinewood reared, 
Within the palace rose, in face of heaven. 
With leafy screen of dark funereal boughs 
The queen enclosed it round ; above she placed 
The scutcheon, sword, and image of the chief, 581 
And (well foreseeing all) the bridal bed. 



I38 THE ^ENEID. [509-531 

Beside the altar now the Enchantress stands 
With weird dishevelled locks ; and thunders forth 
Her invocation to a hundred Gods 
Thrice told : on Erebus and Chaos calls ; 
And Dian's threefold form in Heaven, Earth, Hell. 
Then waters, of Avernus falsely-famed, 
She sprinkles round, and potent philters brings ; 
Juices of poisonous plants, with brazen shears 590 
By moonlight culled, and that weird lock of love 
That sprouts upon the brow of colt new-born 
Ere severed by its dam. The death-doomed queen, 
With bare unsandalled foot and zone unbound, 
The salt-besprinkled offering in her hands, 
Bends o'er the shrine ; appeals to all her Gods, 
The conscious stars, and those benignant Powers 
That pity and requite ill-mated love. 

'Twas night, and slumber wrapt all living things ; 
The rustling woods, the sea's wild waves were still ; 
Their midway course in Heaven the planets kept; 601 
Hushed were the fields, the flocks, the gay-plumed 

birds 
That skim the mere or haunt the bosky dell, — 
All ceased their labours, and from carking care 
Found welcome respite in the stilly night — 
All, save unhappy Dido ; she alone, 
Sleepless in heart and eye, sad vigil kept : 



532-553] BOOK IV. 139 

Thick-coming cares distract her mind ; now love, 
With fiercer pangs reviving, storms her breast ; 
Now anger's wavering gusts in turn prevail. 610 

Thus communes with her heart the indignant queen : 
' Scorned as I am, ah ! whither shall I turn ? — 
To those Numidian chiefs that wooed me once, 
And cringe to suitors whom I spurned before ? 
What then? Commit me to the Trojan ships 
A bond-slave to their will — such grateful hearts 
Already have my bygone favours won ! 
But grant I wished it, could I thus intrude 
My hated presence on their haughty crews ? 
Misguided woman ! little dost thou know 620 

Laomedon's forsworn and faithless race ? 
What, if I follow in their wake alone, 
Or, heading in pursuit the Tyrian host, 
Drag my unwilling subjects o'er the waves, 
Whom erst from their Sidonian homes I tore ? 
Nay, better die at once and end my woes — 
Fate well deserved ! Thou, sister, by my tears 
Subdued, and to my madness falsely kind, 
Hast wrought my fall — betrayed me to my foes. 
Oh ! could I but have lived unmated, free, 630 

As beasts of chase, nor known this load of care, 
Then had my life been blameless, nor my vows 
To dead Sichaeus pledged been thus belied ! ' — 



140 THE iENEID. [554~579 

To such laments her bursting heart gave way. 

Now on the lofty poop, resolved to sail, 
His fleet equipped for sea, ^Eneas slept, 
When at his side the same celestial form, 
With voice of stern rebuke, once more appeared. 
'Twas Mercury himself — his voice, his bloom, 
His golden locks, and limbs of youthful grace : 640 
i Is this a time to slumber, Goddess-born, 
Blind to the dangers thickening round thy head ; 
Deaf to the favouring breeze that woos thv sail : 
A dark insidious plot the queen conceives, 
Distraught with rage, and resolute to die. 
Haste, then ! while time is yet thine own, — begone : 
Full soon, should morning's light o'ertake thee here, 
Yon sea will swarm with galleys — blazing brands 
Flash far and wide — the shores be red with flames : 
Delay not for thy life. A woman's mind 650 

Was ever wavering known, and prone to change/ 
He spoke, and vanished in the dusky night. 

Scared by the dream, ^Eneas starts from sleep, 
And rouses all his men. ' Awake, awake ! 
In haste,' he cries, 'bend, shipmates, to your oars ! 
A God from Heaven commands. Your moorings slip, 
And hoist your sails. Gladly, O heavenly guide ! 
Whoe'er thou art, thy bidding we obey ; 
Auspicious stars and speeding breezes send.' 



580-600] BOOK IV. 141 

His sword, unsheathed like lightning as he spoke, 
The hawser cleft in twain — through all the crew 661 
Contagious ardour spreads : they run, they haste ; 
The port is cleared : the waves o'erspread with sails ; — 
Swiftly the straining oarsmen cleave the brine. 

As, rising from Tithonus' amber bed, 
Aurora flung her earliest beams abroad, 
Sad Dido from her watch-tower marked the dawn, 
The fleet with full-spread sails far out to sea, 
The abandoned port below ; then thrice she smote 
Her beauteous breast, thrice rent her locks of gold. 
' And shall he leave me thus, great Jove ? ' she cried : 
1 This homeless wanderer thus insult my realm ? 672 
Why rally not my people ? — bid them haste 
To rescue — from their moorings loose the ships ? 
Swords, firebrands bring — launch boats, and put to sea. 
What have I said ? Where am I ? Do I rave ? 
Unhappy Dido ! now thy guilty deeds 
Find retribution : better had it come 
When thou didst share thy throne ! Lo ! now, how 

true, 
How loyal to his plighted faith, the man 680 

Who bears about, 'tis said, his country's Gods, 
W r hose pious shoulders saved his helpless sire ! 
Had I not power to seize that caitiff form, 
Tear limb from limb, and fling them to the waves — 



142 THE ^ENEID. [601-622 

His comrades all destroy — Ascanius slay, 

And for his father's banquet serve the boy ? 

True, there was risk in war : perchance defeat ; — 

What recked I, bent on death ? I could have fired 

Their fleet with torches, swept their decks with flame, 

And in one blazing ruin sire and son, 690 

With all their race, consumed — myself the last. 

Thou Sun, whose beams all human deeds survey ! 

Thou Juno, witness to wronged lovers' woes ! 

Thou Hecate, with midnight shrieks invoked 

In cross-ways dim ! ye direful Sister- Fiends, 

And Gods who watch o'er Dido's end ! — give ear, 

Pity my anguish, and my curse fulfil : 

If Fate and stern necessity ordain 

This recreant chief should gain the Ausonian shore ; 

May he — long harassed by fierce warrior tribes, 700 

Torn from lulus' arms, from his own land 

An outcast — humbly supplicate relief, 

While friends sink round him in dishonoured graves ; 

Nor, when at length for ignominious peace 

He barters fame, may he with prosperous age 

Or power be blest, but perish ere his time 

Cut off, and rot unburied where he lies ! 

'Tis my last prayer, and with my life-blood sealed. 

And ye, O Tyrians, giant my buried shade 

This recompense : with unrelenting hate 710 



623-646] BOOK IV. 143 

The accursed race pursue ye, root and branch — 
Let never league nor truce the nations bind ! 
Rise, some Avenger, from my ashes rise ! 
To scourge with fire and steel this Dardan horde, 
Now, and in after-times, as oft as power 
Gives reins to vengeance : battle to the last, 
Ye and your children's children — arms with amis 
Confronting, shore with shore, and sea with sea.' 

Such were her words, her thoughts intent the while 
On speediest quittance from the life she loathed. 720 
To Barce then, Sichaeus' aged nurse 
(Her own in Tyre had found a grave), she spake : 
' Good nurse, my sister Anna hither send 5 
With lustral water sprinkled bid her come, 
And sable victims and atonements bring. 
Thou, too, with pious chaplet wreathe thy brow : 
The sacrificial rites to Stygian Jove 
Fain would I now complete, to end my pain, 
And burn the Trojan emblems on the pyre ; 
Her feeble steps, thus urged, the dame bestirred. 730 

Trembling and pale at Death's impending doom, 
Yet to her desperate purpose fiercely strung, 
Rolling her bloodshot eyes, her glowing cheeks 
With crimson streaked, the queen with hurried steps 
Bursts through the inner courts and mounts the pile ; 
Unsheathes the Dardan sword — ah ! luckless gift, 



144 THE ^ENEID. [647-667 

Ne'er for such use bestowed — and gazes round. 

The Phrygian robes, the well-known bridal bed, 

She saw — a moment paused to muse and weep, 

Sank on the couch and spake her dying words : 740 

' Dear relics of a happier time, while Heaven 

And Fate were kind, receive my parting breath, 

And from this livelong anguish set me free. 

My life is done — my destiny fulfilled : 

Now shall my queenly shade to night descend. 

A glorious city have I built, avenged 

A husband's blood, a brother's wrong repaid ; 

Blest in my lot — beyond all wishes blest — 

Had Trojan bark ne'er drifted on my shores ! ' 

Then on the coverlet her lips she pressed. 750 

' And must I die ? ' she said, ' and unavenged ? 

Yes ! welcome death ! — thus, thus 'tis joy to die. 

Let the false Dardan as he roves the deep 

Feed full his gaze, and may this blazing pile 

Flash on his soul the presage of despair ! ' 

Scarce had she ceased to speak, when on the sword 
Her maidens saw her fall — with horror saw 
The reeking blade and blood-besprinkled hands. 
Then tumult fills the palace, and abroad 
Wild Rumour stalks, and riots through the town. 760 
From house to house groans, shrieks, and women's 
wails 



668-686] BOOK IV. 1 45 

Break forth — the welkin rings with notes of woe. 

Such was the din as though some warrior host 

Had stormed the gates of Carthage or old Tyre, 

And o'er their palaces and fanes the tide 

Of conflagration rolled. Those sounds of fear, 

With consternation breathless, Anna heard, 

Smote with clenched hands her bosom, her fair cheeks 

Defaced, and darting through the midst, addressed 

The dying queen by name : ' Were these thy wiles ? 

Thus, Dido, didst thou cheat thy sister's love? 771 

For this were altars, pyre, and rites prepared ? 

Forsaken that I am, all utterance fails 

For grief like mine ! Ah ! wherefore didst thou scorn 

Companionship in death ? One hour, one sword — 

It needed but a word — had both released. 

Ah me ! these very hands the altar raised, 

These lips invoked the Gods, thy life beloved 

The sacrifice ; I — heartless — far away ! 

O sister ! thou hast slain thyself and me, 780 

Thy people at one blow, thy Tyrian realm, 

All, all destroyed. Ho ! water bring with speed 

To bathe the wound. I with my lips will catch 

The flickering pulse of life.' 

Upon the pyre 
She sprang, with fond caress the unconscious form 
Embraced, and stanched the life-blood with her robe. 

VOL. I. K 



I46 THE /ENEID. [687-705 

The queen just raised her heavy lids \ again 
She swooned, while oozed afresh the gurgling tide. 
Thrice, resting on her arm, her head she raised ; 
Thrice on the couch sank back, with straining eyes 
That sought the light, yet shuddered at its glare. 791 

But now her lingering pains and slow release 
With pity Juno saw, and from the skies 
Sent Iris down, with ministering aid 
To loose the fleshly bonds, the spirit free ; 
For since nor crime nor ordinance of Fate, 
But shock of grief untimely wrought her end : 
Nor Proserpine as yet the golden tress 
Had severed from her brow, nor yet her soul 
To Orcus doomed, — for this did Iris speed 800 

Her flight with dewy pinions, flashing back 
A thousand tints refracted from the sun. 
Then, standing at the head, ' By Heaven's decree, 
This lock to Stygian Jove I dedicate, 
And quit thee of this mortal coil/' she said ; 
Then closed the shears. The spark of life grew cold, 
And mingling with the winds her spirit fled. 807 



THE ^NEID 



BOOK V. 



[r-14 



BOOK V. 



Meanwhile ^Eneas, firm of purpose, held 
His course to sea : his galleys cleft the waves 
Crisped by the northern gale : behind him lay 
The city, red with Dido's blazing pile ; 
What cause had lit the flame they knew not yet ; 
But the sharp agonies of love disdained, 
And the roused furies of a woman's breast, 
With dire forebodings filled the sons of Troy. 

Now on mid-ocean launched, nor land they saw, 
Nor aught save skies above and waves around. 10 
Herald of night and storm, the rain-cloud broke 
O'erhead, and darkly frowned the furrowed deep. 
The pilot, Palinurus, at the helm 
Exclaims, c Ah ! why these mists that clog the air? 
What wouldst thou now, great Neptune ? ' Then he 
bids 



150 THE ^NEID, [15-35 

His seamen furl the sails and ply their oars ; 

And hauling round his vessel to the wind, 

Thus to ^Eneas speaks : ' High-hearted chief S 

Vain were the hope, though Jove's own word were 

pledged, 
Through these foul skies to gain the Italian shore ; 20 
The wind veers round, and from the darkening west 
Beats on our sails aslant : the murky air 
Congeals to mist : our straining ships no more 
Make head against the storm, nor hold their way. 
Since Fortune wills it so, we needs must yield, 
And shape our course to hers. Not far, methinks, 
If observation of the stars of old 
Bears out my reckoning, are the friendly shores 
Of Sicily, where once thy mother's son 
Eryx was king.' i Enough/ the chief replies ; 30 

c Long have I watched thee struggling with the storm, 
That must perforce prevail. Shift now thy course ; 
What more congenial haven could I find, 
Our ships what friendlier refuge, than the land 
Where reigns Acestes, true-born son of Troy, 
Where, in his peaceful grave, Anchises lies ? ' 
Straight for the port they steer ; a favouring breeze 
Their canvass fills, and, floating with the tide, 
They hail with joy the hospitable strand. 

The well-known ships that bear his friends to shore, 



36-57] BOOK V. 15 I 

With wonder from the heights Acestes views ; 41 

In shaggy hide of Libyan bear attired, 

With javelins armed : of Trojan mother born, 

The river-God Crinisus was his sire ; 

His kinsfolk, mindful of ancestral ties, 

He blithely greets, and from his rustic store 

Regales with genial cheer the wearied crews. 

Soon as the morrow's dawn had chased the stars, 
^Eneas, all his comrades on the shore 
Assembling, from a lofty mound addressed : 50 

* Sons of the mighty Dardan, heaven-born race ! 
Through all its circling months the year hath run, 
Since in the earth my godlike father's bones 
We laid, and sanctified his altar-tomb. 
Now, if I mark aright, the day is near, — 
Sad to my heart, yet ever to be held — 
Since thus the Gods ordained — in honour due : 
That day, though exiled in Gaetulian wilds, 
On Grecian seas overtaken, or immured 
Within Mycenae's walls, would I observe 60 

With ceremonial pomp and annual rites, 
And heap rich offerings on the hallowed shrine. 
Not by our own resolve, but, as I ween, 
O'erruled by counsel of the Gods, we stand 
Beside the tomb and ashes of my sire, 
By Fortune to this friendly haven led. 



152 THE yENEID. [58-78 

Then let us solemnise our festal day, 
Entreat the winds, and of Anchises crave 
That, in our new-built city, year by year, 
Commemoration at his fanes be made : 70 

Acestes, true compatriot, on our crews 
Two goodly heifers for each ship bestows. 
Invoke to bless the feast your country's Gods, 
Your own, and those your generous host adores. 
When the ninth morn, illuming with her beams 
The earth, shall dawn, will I a race proclaim 
Wherein the ships of Troy may prove their speed ; 
Then, too, the swift of foot, the stout of limb, 
The combatants well skilled in bow or spear, 
And those who dare with csestus to engage ; 80 

All for their meed of honour may contend : 
Wreathe now your brows ; ill-omened words forbear.' 

Thus speaking, with his Mother's myrtle-leaves 
He twined his hair : thus, too, did Elymus, 
Acestes, ripe in years, the princely boy 
Ascanius, and his youthful compeers all. 
Forth from the conclave then the hero came, 
With countless train attended, to the tomb. 
Libation there he made — new milk and wine, 
And consecrated blood, of each two bowls — 90 

In honour of the genial God outpoured ; 
Then, strewing purple flowers, invoked the dead : 



79^99.] BOOK V. 1 53 

' Soul of my sainted father, hail once more ! 

Hail, holy shade ! hail, ashes saved in vain ! 

'Tis not for us together to behold 

Fair Italy, our people's destined home, 

Or Tiber, wheresoe'er that stream be found.' 

Scarce ceased his words, when, from the inmost shrine, 

A slimy serpent trailed his sevenfold coils, 

Glided the altar round, and clasped the tomb — ioo 

His back with azure streaked, his scales with gold 

Bespangled, like the cloud-encircling bow 

With thousand tints refracted from the sun. 

.^Eneas gazed astounded, as the beast 

Amid the burnished cups his spiral folds 

Wound harmlessly \ then, tasting of the meats, 

The altar left, and sank beneath the mound. 

Fired with new zeal, the pious son fulfils 

The rites ordained, uncertain should he deem 

The serpent, of that consecrated spot no 

The genius, or attendant of his- sire. 

Two sheep with customary rites he slays, 

Of swine and coal-black heifers each a pair, 

Then fills the flowing wine-cups, and invokes 

The shade of great Anchises, and his soul 

From Acheron released : his people too, 

As each could spare of substance, cheerfully 

Their pious offerings on the altar laid ; 



154 THE ^ENEID. [100-122 

Some lead the steers to slaughter, others bring 
The brazen caldrons forth, or, on the sward 120 

Reclining, pile the embers, and with spits 
Transfix the meat and roast it at the flame. 

Now dawned the ninth fair morning, and in light 
Unclouded rolled the chariot of the Sun. 
Allured by rumour and the honoured name 
Of King Acestes, flocked the neighbouring tribes 
In joyous multitudes, intent to see 
The strangers, or themselves in games to strive. 
First, in the lists the prizes are displayed — 
The consecrated tripods, and the palms, 130 

The leafy chaplets for the victors' brows, 
Bright arms, and tissues shot with purple dyes, 
Ingots of gold and silver ; — suddenly 
A trumpet's peal proclaims the sports begun. 

First enter for the race, with ponderous oars, 
Four well-matched barks, the swiftest of the fleet : 
Mnestheus — a name in Italy long since 
Illustrious, whence the house of Memmius sprang — 
Commands fleet Pristis with her stalwart crew. 
To Gyas the Chimsera's mighty bulk, 140 

Huge as a floating city, is assigned : 
In triple tier her lusty rowers sit, 
Three banks of oars they ply. The Centaur bears 
Sergestus, founder of the Sergian name. 



123-145] BOOK V. 155 

At sea-green Scylla's helm Cloanthus stands, 
The sire, Cluentius, of thy Roman line. 

Fronting the shore, but far to seaward, stands 
A rock, that when the mid north-western gales 
Blot out the starry skies, is washed with spray, 
But lifts its head serene when winds are still, 150 

The haunt of sea-mews basking in the sun. 
On this a leafy mast of holm-oak green 
^Eneas fixed, a signal for the crews 
To round the point, then backward steer to shore. 
Each takes by lot his station ; on the poop, 
In gold and purple gorgeously attired, 
The captains stand ; the gallant crews, with sprigs 
Of poplar decked, their manly shoulders bare 
Glistening with oil, sit panting for the start 
With arms outstretched, and hearts with tremor 
thrilled, 160 

Yet fired with high ambition for renown. 
Soon as the trumpet's note gives signal, each 
Darts forward from his post ; with seamen's shouts 
The welkin rings ; by straining arms convulsed, 
The waves are streaked with foam, and ocean yawns, 
Furrowed with oars, and cleft by three-forked prows. 
Less wildly bound the chariots in the race, 
Flash from the goal, and storm the plain with speed ; 
Less wildly o'er their steeds with reins outflung 



156 THE jENEID. , [146-168 

And brandished lash, the maddening drivers hang. 
With shouts and acclamations of applause 171 

The forest rings ; the hollow shores fling back 
The clamour, and the echoing hills reply. 
Amid the press and tumult, Gyas first 
Emerging, leads the race : him follows next 
Cloanthus, weighted with his bulky craft, 
Though better manned with oars : at intervals 
Scarce differing, Pristis and the Centaur strive 
For mastery • now a moment Mnestheus leads, 
A moment, and the Centaur darts ahead; 180 

Now side by side they row, with straining bows 
Abreast, and furrow with long keels the brine. 
Close on the rock at length the vessels came, 
And neared the goal, when Gyas in mid-stream 
Foremost, and deeming victory wellnigh won, 
Addressed Menaetes, helmsman of his crew : 
' Why bear so far to seaward ? to the left 
Incline, and graze the barrier with your oars ; 
To others leave the deep. His words were vain \ 
Fearful of hidden shelves, Menaetes still 190 

Gave wider berth, and seaward turned his prow. 
Yet louder Gyas shouted : c Once again, 
Menaetes, shift your helm and hug the shore ; ' — 
Then turning, saw Cloanthus close astern, — 
'Twixt Gyas and the crag's projecting edge, 



169-192] m BOOK V. 157 

Midway his bark he drove \ his rival passed, 

Rounded the point, and found his sea-way clear. 

But GyaSj stung with anguish, scarce restrained 

His tears : of honour and his comrades' lives 

Regardless, from the lofty prow he flung 200 

The craven pilot headlong to the waves, 

The tiller seized, and, cheering on his crew, 

Steered for the goal. Meanwhile Menaetes, old 

In years and cumbered with his dripping garb, 

Climbed the steep cliff, and on the ridge sat down. 

Loud laughed the Trojans as they saw him fall, 

And buffet with the billows : louder still 

To see him sputter forth the choking brine. 

But now Sergestus, struggling in the rear, 

And Mnestheus, too, are fired with hope to seize 210 

The vantage Gyas lost : the vacant space 

Sergestus, verging on the rock, forestalls ; 

Scarce half his length ahead, for Pristis shoots 

Her beak midway along her rival's side. . 

But Mnestheus, pacing down the deck, incites 

His gallant crew : i Now, now, my men, make way : 

Clansmen of mighty Hector, whom I chose 

For comrades in the last sad hour of Troy, 

Show now your native prowess, tried so oft 

Amid Gsetulian quicksands, in the gulf 220 

Of Grecian seas, and Malea's rushing flood. 



158 THE iENEID. [193-215 

I seek not, I, the victors palm, nor claim 
The foremost place ; yet oh ! if Mnestheus might — 
But whom thou favourest, Neptune, his the prize ; 
Yet to be last were shameful. O my friends, 
Avert such obloquy ! ' With zeal new-roused 
They fling them on their oars ; the stout ship reels 
Beneath their stroke, the yielding waves recede ; 
With heaving chest, parched throat, and quivering 
frame, 229 

They tug ! while floods of sweat their limbs bedew. 
But now unlooked-for chance their efforts crowns, 
For while Sergestus, reckless in his haste 
The narrow intervening space to thread, 
Too close upon the verge his galley drove ; 
Fast on the jutting crags he stuck aground. 
The rocks recoiled, while shivering on the peak 
Grated the oars, and fractured hung the prow. 
The rowers from their bench with uproar spring, 
Their sturdy poles and steel-tipped boat-hooks ply, 
And clutch the floating tackle from the waves. 240 
But Mnestheus, with success elate, invokes 
The winds to aid, and, speeded by swift oars, 
Darts down the open channel. Like a dove 
That in some cavernous rock hath lodged her young ; 
Scared from her sheltering nook, in wild alarm 
She flaps her sounding pinions as she flies ; 



216-238] BOOK V. 159 

Then launching on the liquid fields of air, 
Noiseless she floats, nor stirs her buoyant wings, — 
Thus in fleet Pristis Mnestheus skims the wave, 
Thus self-impelled the well-trimmed vessel glides. 
And first Sergestus, labouring in the shoals, 251 

He leaves astern, while vainly he entreats 
Relief, and strives to row with shattered oars. 
Next Gyas, with his monster bark unsteered, 
Is forced his place to yield. And now alone, 
Close on the goal, Cloanthus heads the race, 
Whom Mnestheus, straining every nerve, pursues. 
Then louder grows the din : redoubled shouts 
Rending the skies, incite the chasing crew ; 
These count the prize already won, disdain 260 

Surrender, and would barter life for fame : 
Those learn new courage from their own success, 
And in the confidence of strength are strong. 
Both now perchance had equal honours shared, 
But to the Gods Cloanthus breathed a prayer 
With hands outspread : ' Ye Gods, whose watery 

realm 
I traverse now, two snow-white bulls to bleed 
Before your altars will I gladly yield 
In quittance of my vow, their entrails fling 
Forth to the brine, and flowing wine-cups pour.' 270 
Deep in their crystal caves beneath the main, 



l60 THE ^ENEID. [239-260 

The Nereid band of Phorcus heard his prayer ; 
The sea-born maiden Panopea heard, 
And old Portunus with strong hand impelled 
The bark : as arrow swift or southern gale, 
She shot to land, and safe in harbour lay. 

Then in the sight of all, Anchises' son 
Loud proclamation by his heralds made, 
And with dark bays Cloanthus victor crowned : 
Gifts for the crews — three goodly steers for choice, 
Wine, and a silver talent — next bestowed; 281 

But costlier guerdon to the captains gave : 
A mantle to Cloanthus, wrought in gold, 
With two meandering lines of purple edged 
Of Melibcean dye ; the woof displayed 
The beauteous prince * of Ida's leafy grove — 
Him, as with nimble foot and hunter's spear, 
Keen on his game, as one that pants for breath, 
He chased the flying deer, Jove's warrior bird, 
Swooping with forky talons, snatched aloft; 290 

Aghast his guardians stand, their aged arms 
Upraised to Heaven, while fiercely bay the hounds. 
To him whose prowess earned the second prize, 
A hauberk bright, with links of gold thrice coiled, 
At once the warrior's safeguard and his pride, 
The hero gave ; of which his own strong arm 
* Ganymede. 



261-284] BOOK V. l6l 

Despoiled Demoleon on the battle-field 
Of Simois, hard by Ilion's stately towers. 
Phegeus and Sagaris scarce, with strength conjoined, 
The huge chain-armour on their shoulders bore ; 300 
Yet stout Demoleon, reckless of the weight, 
Chased, thus arrayed, the broken ranks of Troy. 
The third reward two brazen caldrons yield, 
And cups of moulded silver, richly chased. 

Now decked with costly gifts the victors all 
Went forth, their brows with crimson chaplets bound ; 
When, scarcely from the treacherous reefs escaped, 
One tier of oars disabled, others lost, 
Sergestus hauled his luckless bark to land, 
With many a jeer saluted ; — like a snake 310 

Crushed on the highway by the overpassing wheel, 
Or by some traveller mangled, and with stones 
Of half his life bereft : in vain he writhes 
In impotent contortions ; fierce his front, 
His attitude erect, with hissing- throat \ 
And eyes fire-breathing ; but his nether part 
Hangs paralysed and helpless, as he drags 
His sinuous length, and doubles on his coil ; — 
Thus tardily the crippled bark made way, 
But spreading all her sails, the harbour gained. 320 
Rejoicing o'er his crew and galley saved, 
./Eneas to Sergestus Pholoe gave, 

VOL. I. L 



1 62 THE iENEID. [285-310 

A slave of Cretan birth, in textile arts 

Well skilled : twin infants at her breast she bore. 

This contest ended, to a grassy plain, 
Girdled with wood-clad hills, the chief repairs, 
Where, like a sylvan theatre, the vale 
A circus forms ; there seats him on a mound 
High-raised, the centre of a crowded ring. 
Then prizes for the footrace he proclaims, 330 

And tempts fleet runners to contend in speed. 
Sicilian youths and Trojans side by side 
Stand forth, — Euryalus and Nisus first : 
Euryalus for youthful grace renowned, 
Nisus for pure affection to his friend. 
Diores next, of Priam's royal line, 
Patron, of high Arcadian ancestry, 
And Acarnanian Salius ; Panopes 
And Helymus, to sylvan sports inured, 
Comrades of old Acestes : many a youth 340 

Besides, whose names oblivious Fame conceals. 
Then spake ^Eneas : ' Hearken gladly all : 
No runner in this race shall lack reward ; 
Two Cretan javelins, tipped with burnished steel, 
A battle-axe besides, with silver chased, 
Will I on each bestow; the foremost three 
Shall olive chaplets wear and prizes gain : 
The first a steed richly caparisoned : 



3H-337] BOOK V. 163 

The next an Amazonian quiver, stored 

With Thracian shafts, encircled with a belt 350 

Of ample gold, and buckled with a gem ; 

The third this Grecian helmet may content.' 

Now all in line they stand, and at the word 
Forth from the barrier spring, across the plain 
Burst like a storm, and mark the goal in view. 
Outstripping all competitors, more fleet 
Than southern gale or levin's fiery wing, 
Bounds Nisus foremost ; next, yet far apart, 
Comes Salius, and with scanty space between, 
Euryalus is third; then Helymus, 360 

Whom now Diores justles, with close steps 
Grazing his heel, and had full space allowed, 
Had passed him by, or dubious left the prize. 
Close on the goal at last the runners came, 
When Nisus on the blood-besprinkled sward, 
Wet from the slaughtered heifers, slipped and fell. 
Flushed as he was with triumph wellnigh won, 
His tottering steps gave way, and in the mire 
Dyed with the victims' gore, outstretched he lay ; 
Yet ne'er in his extremity forgat 370 

The love he bare Euryalus : to his feet 
Struggling he rose, himself on Salius flung, 
And rolled him headlong in the slippery clay. 
Then seized Euryalus the foremost place, 



1 64 THE 2ENEID. [338-363 

And victor by his friend's devotion, flew, 
With acclamation speeded, to the goal. 
But Salius, with remonstrance fierce and loud, 
Assails the conclave, to the chiefs appeals, 
And claims his rightful prize, by treachery lost. 
The favour of the crowd, his graceful tears, 380 

And merit lovelier in a beauteous form, 
Plead for Euryalus ; Diores, too — 
Who vainly for the third reward had striven, 
Should Salius gain the first — maintains his cause. 
Then spake the chief: i Brave youths, our rule abides 
Unchanged — let none dispute the palm assigned ; 
From me a friend's distress may pity claim.' 
To Salius then a Moorish lion's hide, 
With ponderous mane and golden claws, he gave. 
Said Nisus : t If misfortune finds reward, 390 

And such rich solace to the vanquished falls, 
What prize is mine, who, foremost in the race, 
Was foiled, like Salius, by mischance alone ? ; 
This said, he showed his spattered face and limbs, 
Begrimed with filth. Benignly smiled the Sire, 
And bade a shield be brought, the masterpiece 
Of DidymaonV skill, which plundering Greeks 
Had torn from Neptune's threshold, where it hung ; 
Such guerdon to the generous youth he gave. 399 
The race thus ended, and the victors crowned, 



364-386] BOOK V. 165 

' Now, 1 said the chief, 'ye champions all who bear 

Hearts well resolved, and courage for the fray, 

Draw near, and bind the casstus on your arms.' 

Two prizes for the combat he assigns : 

A steer, with fillets decked and gilded horns, 

The victor to reward ; a falchion keen 

And glittering casque the vanquished to console. 

A moment scarce had passed when in his might, 

Amid the applauding concourse, Dares rose. 

He, only he, with Paris durst contend; 410 

He, too, at mighty Hector's obsequies, 

The unconquered Butes, vaunting in his pride, 

Bebrycian birth, and Amycus his sire, 

Struck down, and laid him gasping on the sand. 

Such he who, panting for the fight, displayed 

His shoulders broad, reared high his head, his arms 

Battling the air, alternately outflung. 

Where shall his match be found ? In all the host 

Xone dares the gauntlet wield, and bide his blow. 

Soon as he saw all rivals hold aloof, 420 

He stood before the chief, the bullock's horn 

Grasped in his strong left hand, and thus he spake : 

1 Since none accepts the challenge, Goddess-born, 

Why more delay ? — what need to tarry here ? 

Award me now my prize.' The Trojans all 

Shouted applause, and claimed their champion's due. 



1 66 THE iENEID. [387-409 

But King Acestes in reproachful strain 

Addressed Entellus, who beside him lay, 

Couched on a grassy bank : ' Entellus, thou, 

Once fondly deemed our bravest, canst thou sit 430 

And tamely see without competitor 

Such honours lavished ? O remember him, 

Eryx, that God, thy vaunted master once : 

Where now thy fame through wide Trinacria spread, 

And those proud trophies that adorn thy halls ? ' 

1 Nay, prince, my thirst for glory is not quenched,' 
He answered, ' nor my courage quelled by fear. 
But, well-a-day ! the frosts of age have numbed 
My limbs, and chilled the current in my veins. 
Could I that prime of lusty youth recall, 440 

Whereof yon blustering caitiff boasts him now, 
'Twould need no gilded heifer to allure 
Me to the fight ; nor care I for reward/ 
E'en as he spoke, two gauntlets huge he flung 
Down in the midst, which Eryx used to wield 
Laced on his brawny arms with thongs of hide. 
All gazed astonished at the sevenfold plaits 
Of bull's-hide, studded thick with lead and steel. 
Confounded more than all, and far aloof, 
Stood Dares, while the chief turned o'er and o'er 450 
The ponderous gloves, and poised them in his hands. 
Then spake the veteran : ' Ah ! that ye had seen 



410-431] BOOK V. 1 67 

The arms and caestus of great Hercules, 

And that grim combat on this self-same strand ! 

Those gauntlets did thy kinsman Eryx wear 

(Mark you how stained with blood and spattered 

brains) ; 
With these he braved Alcides face to face : 
These was I trained to wield when my strong arm 
Beat with the pulse of youth, ere jealous age 
Had graved his hoary furrows on my brow. 460 

But since your Trojan champion dreads these arms, 
Should good ^Eneas and my own liege lord 
Approve, with equal weapons let us fight : 
Fear not — the gloves of Eryx I resign; 
Thou, Dares, lay thy Trojan caestus down.' 
Off from his shoulders broad his double vest 
He flung, his massive limbs and sinews bared, 
And in the lists erect the giant stood. 
Two gauntlets, then, well matched in weight and size, 
On either champion's wrists .^Eneas bound. 470 

Now each with fearless mien on tiptoe stands, 
Their arms upraised to strike, each head thrown back 
To 'scape his rival's blow : thus hand to hand 
They spar awhile, and skirmish ere they close, — 
One confident in youth and agile limb : 
The other in his mightier bulk and frame ; 
But tremblingly his knees their burthen bear, 






l6S THE /ENEID. [432-455 

And with quick sobs his panting bosom heaves. 

Full many a sturdy buffet to and fro 

They deal : their hollow ribs reverberate 480 

With blows unceasing ; ears and temples round, 

And crackling jaws, the iron tempest rings. 

Erect Entellus stands, immovable, 

Only by turn of body and quick eye 

Baffling the blows ; the other, — like the foe 

Who 'gainst beleaguered towers his battery rears, 

Or to some mountain fort lays siege, — explores 

Each inlet of attack, his rival's fence 

Tries here and there, and seeks a breach in vain. 

Entellus, towering in his might, uplifts 490 

His arms to strike ; the Trojan, all alert, 

Foresees the blow, and nimbly darts aside. 

The baffled veteran spends his strength on air ; 

But, by that impulse and his own huge bulk 

O'er-weighted, prostrate falls, — so topples down 

On Ida's steep or Erymanthian glade 

The uprooted pine : confusedly from their seats 

Spring the Trinacrian youth and sons of Troy ; 

Shouts rend the air ; in haste, with pity moved, 

Acestes lifts his comrade from the ground : 500 

But that stout warrior, reckless of his fall, 

And nought disheartened, to the fray returns. 

Rage fires his bosom ; shame, and sense of might 



456-477] BOOK V. 169 

Disparaged, nerve his arm ; in hot pursuit, 
With right hand and with left redoubling blows, 
He drives belaboured Dares round the field. 
No pause, no respite — as the clattering hail 
Pelts on the roof, so from each ponderous fist 
Swift blows unceasing crush and stun the foe. 
But good ^Eneas suffered not too far 510 

The fierce Sicilian's soul to wreak its ire ; 
He bade the combat cease, and from the lists 
Exhausted Dares drew, with kindly words 
Consoling him : ' Infatuate ! seest thou not 
The Gods forsake thee for the adverse side ? 
To them the victory yield/ At his command 
The lists are closed. Stout comrades to the ships 
Their luckless champion bear, his tottering knees 
Bend under him, his head from side to side 
Sways heavily, and from his lips spouts forth 520 

A crimson foam — crushed teeth and curdled gore. 
For him the sword and helm his friends receive, 
The victor's palm and bull Entellus gains. 
He, overjoyed with conquest and his prize, 
Exclaims, ' Thou Goddess-born, ye Trojans all, 
Judge now the prowess of my youthful prime ; 
See from what fearful fate w r as Dares saved/ 
Fronting the bull he stood, with strong right arm 
Drawn back, and rising to the blow, let fall 



170 THE ^ENEID. [478-502 

The massive gauntlet full betwixt the horns. 530 

Deep in the skull it sank and crushed the brain ; 
A lifeless, quivering mass low lay the bull. 
Then, bending o'er the slain, ' Eryx ! ' he cried, 
' A worthier victim here in Dares' stead 
To thee I dedicate : this triumph gained, 
The casstus I renounce, and fight no more.' 

A match for archers skilled in shaft and bow, 
With prizes meet, ^Eneas next ordains. 
A tapering mast Sergestus' galley yields, 
Raised by strong arms and planted in the sand. 540 
From thence a fluttering dove, the bowman's mark, 
Suspended hangs. The rival youths flock round, 
And from a brazen casque the lots are drawn. 
First comes thy name, Hippocoon, worthy son 
Of Hyrtacus, with acclamation hailed ; 
Next Mnestheus, victor in the naval race — 
Mnestheus, w T hose brows the olive chaplet crowns ; 
The third is thine, Eurytion ; brother thou 
Of that famed archer Pandarus, who first, 
Urged by divine command to break the truce, 550 
Amid the Grecian ranks his arrow threw : 
Last from the helm Acestes draws his name, 
Nor shrinks from youthful feats, though old in years. 
Now with strong arm each marksman bends his bow; 
Each from his quiver drawls the feathered reed. 



503-526] BOOK v. i;i 

First the swift arrow from the sounding string 

Of young Hippocoon, hurtling through the sky 

With force unspent, sank buried in the mast. 

The tall stem quivered, and the affrighted bird 

Her pinions flapped : loud plaudits rent the air. 560 

Then stood bold Mnestheus forth, with bowstring 

drawn 
Back to his breast, and upward-straining eye, 
But, luckless archer ! failed to strike the bird — 
Severing the noose and flaxen bonds alone 
That tied its feet : the captive, thus unbound, 
Breasted the wind, and through the clouds upflew. 
But with bent bow and arrow on the string, 
Eurytion, swiftly gazing, marked her flight, 
Brief invocation to his brother made, 
Then pierced the fluttering ring-dove in mid-air -.570 
Her feeble life expiring in the skies, 
Sheathed in her breast the shaft to earth she bore. 

Acestes yet remained, nor deemed it vain 
To launch his arrow though the prize was gone ; 
Proud of his well-trained hand and twanging bow. 
But now a wondrous prodigy appeared, 
Pregnant with dire events, as time revealed, 
And evil-boding seers too late divined. 
The arrow, as it cleft the water}- cloud, 
Burst into light and graved its path in flame, 580 



172 THE ^NEID. [527-549 

Then, wasting in the blaze, was lost to view : 

Like some bright errant star that flies unsphered, 

And trails athwart the heavens its fiery hair. 

The Trojans and Sicilians to their Gods, 

Awe-stricken, bowed in prayer ; the Dardan chief 

Scorned not the omen, but with joy embraced 

And loaded with rich gifts his ancient friend : 

6 Take these, dear Sire/ he said, ' the Olympian King 

By such clear prodigies for thee designs 

Transcendent honours : this fair guerdon, once 590 

Bestowed on old Anchises, shall be thine ; 

A goblet richly moulded, which of yore 

The Thracian Cisseus to my father gave, 

An earnest and memorial of his love.' 

Then round Acestes' head the bays he twined ; 

Acestes victor in the sport proclaimed. 

Nor envied good Eurytion such award, 

Albeit his shaft alone had struck the bird : 

He took the second prize who cleft the cord, 

The third, who lodged his arrow in the mast. 600 

Now ere the games are closed, iEneas calls 
The son of Epytus, companion true 
And guardian of lulus, to his side, 
And breathes a secret message in his ear : 
' Go, bid Ascanius, if his youthful band 
Be mustered, and his horsemen all equipped, 



550-573] BOOK V. 1 73 

In honour of his grandsire hither lead 

His squadron, and the mimic fight array.' 

Then from the lists he bids the thronging crowd 

Retire, and clears the plain. On managed steeds 

The youths before their parents' eyes defile, 611 

While Teucrians and Sicilians shout applause : 

Each round his close-trimmed hair a chaplet wears 

Stripped of its leaves ; two javelins tipped with steel 

Each horseman wields; some burnished quivers bear ; 

Circling the throat, a collar of bright gold 

Falls on the breast. Three troops of cavaliers — 

Twelve youthful knights to each, and officered 

Each by its own boy-captain — scour the plain. 

One joyous company young Priam leads, 620 

Heir to his grandsire's name — thy gallant son, 

Polites, destined to Italian fame ; 

A charger he bestrides of Thracian breed, 

Dappled with spots of snow, his fetlocks white, 

And white the star that on his forehead gleams. 

Next Atys, whom the Roman Attii claim 

Their ancestor : in stature yet a boy 

Was Atys, by the royal boy beloved. 

Himself, lulus, last, surpassing all 

In beauty, a Sidonian palfrey rode, 630 

Fair Dido's gift and token of her love. 

Sicilian steeds, high-mettled, for the rest 



174 THE iENEID. [574-59$ 

Acestes lent. The Trojans, at the sight 
Exulting, cheered the panting youths with praise, 
And in the sons traced likeness of their sires. 

When now, in sight of friends and clansmen all, 
The cavalcade of horsemen had swept by, 
The son of Epytus loud signal gave 
With voice uplifted and resounding thong \ 
Then parts each troop in twain — to right and left 640 
Retires ; then formed anew, and, wheeling round, 
With levelled spears they rally to the charge : 
In evolution swift advance, retreat 
By turns, and circle within circle wind, 
With feint and strategy of mimic war : 
Now turn their backs in flight, now brandish arms, 
Now all abreast in peaceful order ride ; — 
Tortuous as Crete's famed labyrinth of old, 
Whose thousand paths and alleys blind, by walls 
Impenetrably screened, all clue defied 650 

To thread the inextricable endless maze. 
In such fantastic guise the sons of Troy 
Pursue their sportive tactics — fight and fly 
Like dolphins that in Libyan billows sport, 
Or dive and gambol in Carpathian seas ; 
Such feats of arms and gallant horsemanship 
First taught Ascanius to his Latian tribes 
What time he built Long Alba's stately walls : 



599-621] BOOK V. 1 75 

By such traditions of the Teucrian youth, 659 

And their young chief, the Albans trained their sons. 
Great Rome herself through many an age retained 
The ancestral usage : ' Troy ' she called the game, 
And named the combatants ' the Trojan band.' 

Thus honoured they with sports the sainted Sire : 
But now capricious Fortune changed her mood, 
For, ere the games were ended, Juno, still 
New schemes revolving, her inveterate hate 
Unsatisfied, sent Iris from the skies, 
By breezes wafted, to the Trojan fleet. 
She, gliding down her thousand-tinted bow, 670 

Swiftly to earth descends, unseen of all, 
Surveys at once the concourse at the lists, 
The ships unguarded, and the port forlorn. 
There, on the solitary beach apart, 
Mourning Anchises' fate, the Phrygian dames 
Sat gazing o ; er the deep with tearful eyes : 
' O waves untraversed yet ! O boundless main ! ' 
Such their sad monody. With stormy seas 
Outworn, for sheltering walls they sue in vain : 
The Nymph, well skilled to feign, her form divine 680 
And robe disguising, mingled with the throng. 
Beroe she seemed — a mother once in Troy, 
Honoured and nobly born, now bent with age ; 
The Thracian chief D oryclus was her lord. 



176 THE iENEID. [622-643 

Discoursing with the matrons, thus she spake : 

6 O miserable ! whom the ruthless Greek 

Dragged not beneath your native walls to die ! 

O ill-starred race, by cruel Fortune spared 

For heavier woes ! These seven long summers past, 

Since Troy was laid in dust, we, forced to fly, 690 

Have traversed many a land, crossed many a sea, 

Steering through treacherous reefs, by stars unknown ; 

While Italy, long sought, eludes us still. 

Here once our leader's kinsman Eryx reigned ; 

Now reigns his friend Acestes. What forbids 

To build our city here, our wanderings end ? — 

Dear native shores ! ye household Gods in vain 

Snatched from the flames ! shall never city more 

Bear name of Troy ? — no more these eyes behold 

Xanthus and Simois, Hector's hallowed streams ? 700 

Nay, rather let us burn the accursed ships ! 

To me Cassandra proffered in my dream 

A flaming brand — " Your home, your Troy is here,'' 

She cried. Such awful signs forbid delay ; 

Now must the deed be done. Four altars, lo ! 

To Neptune blaze : the God himself supplies 

The torch to kindle and the heart to dare.' 

Swift, as she spoke, a glowing brand she seized, 

And, whirling it aloft, with well-nerved arm 

The missile flung. The matrons with affright 710 



644-668] BOOK V. 177 

Dumb-stricken stood. Then spake an aged dame, 

Pyrgo, once nurse of Priam's royal sons, 

The veteran of the band : ' No Beroe this, 

No wife of old Doryclus \ mark ye not 

That more than human grace — those flashing eyes, 

The mien, the step, the utterance, — all divine ? 

Our sister Beroe have I left but now 

Sick and in grief, debarred her part to bear 

Of duteous service to Anchises' shade.' 

Awhile the matrons stood with looks askance 720 

Eying the ships, distracted in their choice 

Betwixt the present and the promised land ; 

When lo ! the Goddess, soaring on her wings, 

Rose through the cloud and mingled with the bow. 

Then wild dismay and frenzy seize the throng ■ 

They shriek, they snatch the altar's hallowed fires, 

Despoil the shrines, fling branches, fagots, brands, 

To feed the flame — the Fire-God, uncontrolled, 

Riots o'er bench and deck and painted stern. 

Meanwhile Eumelus, hastening to the tomb, 730 

Bears to the startled concourse at the lists 

News of their burning ships. As round they gazed, 

Dense clouds of drifting embers filled the sky. 

Then first Ascanius, as he led full speed 

His youthful squadron, spurning the control 

Of his bewildered guardians, to the camp 

VOL. I. M 



jy8 THE iEXEID. [669-690 

Spurred in hot haste. ' wretched Trojan wives ! 

What mean ye ? — what new frenzy this ? ' he cried : 

' No Grecian fleet, but your own hopes, ye burn. 

; Tis I, your prince, Ascanius/ As he spoke, 740 

The helmet which in mimic fight he wore 

Down at their feet he flung. And now approached 

In haste ^Eneas and his Trojan band ; 

But those distracted matrons down the shore 

Fled wildly, loathing light, and fain to lurk 

Concealed in dens and caverns — at the sight 

Of friends abashed, and stricken with remorse 

For their fell purpose : Juno's baneful spells 

Had ceased to goad them. Not less fierce the while 

The conflagration rages unsubdued; 750 

Beneath the moistened planks the enkindled tow 

Is smouldering, and infectious vapour steals 

From stem to stern ; nor might of stalwart arms, 

Nor drenching floods, the fiery pest allay. 

The pious hero from his shoulders tore 

His robe, his suppliant hands outstretched to Heaven, 

And thus for succour prayed : ' O sovereign Jove ! 

All-puissant I if not utterly abhorred 

By thee our Dardan race ; if mortal woes 

Thou pitiest, as of old, defend our ships 760 

From flames, and rescue from the jaws of death 

This wreck of Troy ! Or, if the guilt be mine, 



691-713] BOOK V. 179 

Hurl thine avenging lightnings at my head. 

And crush me in thy wrath. 3 Scarce had his words 

Found utterance, ere with floods of mighty rain 

Burst a fierce tempest forth : the hills and plains 

Shook with redoubled peals, and all the sky 

Grew black with whirling blast and surging storm. 

The decks were drenched, the half-burnt timbers 

reeked 
With moisture, till the murky fumes died out, 770 
And all, save four good ships, escaped the flame. 

But grieved with such mischance, and burthened sore 
With anxious cares, ^Eneas wavered long, 
Irresolute, to make those shores his home, 
Heedless of destiny, or still in quest 
Of Italy sail on. Wise counsel gave 
Nautes, the sage, whom Pallas more than all 
With varied lore endowed : he, weighing well 
The wrath of Heaven by prodigies displayed. 
And Fate's resistless ordinance, thus spake, 780 

Lightening his leaders grief : ' O Goddess-born ! 
'Tis ours to follow, lead us where it may, 
The path ordained : let Fortune do her worst, 
He conquers who endures. A friend thou hast, 
Acestes, of the heaven-born Dardan line. 
Make him the willing partner of thy cares ; 
The seamen thy diminished fleet may spare, 



l80 THE ^ENEID. [714-736 

The recreants from thy noble enterprise, 

The women wearied of the sea, the old, 

The sick, the timorous to his charge confide; 790 

Here let them build their walls : with thy consent 

Acesta shall their infant town be named.' 

Such counsel cheered his soul, yet conflict dire 
Of thoughts still racked the chief. And now pale Night 
With her yoked steeds had mounted high in heaven, 
When suddenly the image of his sire 
Anchises, gliding from the skies, appeared, 
And in sad accents spake : ' My son, more dear 
Than life while life was mine ! O sorely tried 
By Troy's hard destinies ! from Jove I come, 800 
Who from thy galleys turned the flames aside, 
And now relenting from high Heaven looks down. 
Thou to wise Nautes yield obedient ear ; 
Thy flower of youth, thy stoutest hearts lead on 
To Italy. The fierce untutored tribes 
Of Latium must by War's stern arm be tamed. 
But first the nether realms where Pluto reigns 
Thy foot must tread : beyond the Avernian gulf 
Seek converse with thy sire ; 'tis there I dwell, 
Not in Tartarean shades, the prison-house 810 

Of guilty souls, but in Elysian plains, 
The blissful convocation of the just ; 
Thither, her sable victims duly slain, 



737-757] BOOK V. l8l 

The Sibyl, saintly maid, thy steps shall guide : 

There shall thy destined home, thy sons unborn, 

Be to thine eyes revealed. But now farewell ! 

Far spent is dewy Night, and on me breathe 

The panting coursers of relentless Dawn/ 

He ceased, and vanished like a mist in air. 

' Ah ! whither hast thou fled? — what cruel haste 820 

Is this ? — why thus thy son's fond arms forsake ? ' 

^Eneas cried : then kindled he anew 

The sunken fires, and adoration paid, 

With hallowed meal and incense, at the shrines 

Of hoary Yesta and his country's Gods. 

His father's counsel, then, and Jove's behest, 

First to Acestes, to his comrades next, 

Imparts, nor leaves his own resolve untold. 

The friendly prince approves ; the plan speeds well ; 

A crowd of timid matrons, and of men 830 

Uncovetous of fame, they leave on shore ; 

The rest new benches for the ships prepare, 

Replace the timbers which the flames had charred, 

The masts with cordage fit, the banks with oars, — 

A slender band, but ardent warriors all. 

Meanwhile iEneas with a plough designs 
The city's bounds, allots to all their homes, 
This place surnames from Ilium, that from Troy. 
Acestes, w T ith a patriot's pride, surveys 



1 82 THE /BNEID. [758-778 

His growing realm ; a forum he designs ; 840 

Convokes the Senate, and proclaims the laws. 
A temple to the Idalian queen they found 
High on the steeps of Eryx, and assign 
A ministering priest, and grove far-famed, 
To guard the precincts of Anchises' tomb. 
Nine days of solemn feast and sacrifice 
The sons of Troy fulfilled ; and now soft airs 
Had lulled the waves, and whispering south winds 

wooed 
Their fleet to sea. Along the winding shore 
Burst forth the voice of mourning; night and day 850 
Friends soon to part prolonged their last farewell. 
The women, too, and they who loathed the sight 
Of the rude ocean, and its name abhorred, 
All fearless now of hardship, longed to sail. 
./Eneas soothes their anguish, and with tears 
Commends them to his royal kinsman's care. 
Three calves to Eryx, to the Storms a lamb, 
He slays ; then bids his seamen from the strand 
Their hawsers loose ; himself, with olive wreath 
Circling his brow, a beaker in his hand, 860 

Stands on the lofty prow, and o'er the waves 
The quivering entrails flings, and pours the wine. 
Fresh blows the breeze astern, in friendly strife 
The gallant oarsmen vie, and cleave the main, 



779-Soi] BOOK V. 1 83 

Meanwhile, complaining to the Ocean King, 
In piteous tones spake Venus, racked with care : 
' To all entreaties, Neptune, must I stoop, 
Since Juno's inextinguishable hate 
Nor time can heal, nor piety disarm, 
Nor Jove's behest, nor Fate itself subdue. 870 

Unsated, though the Phrygian city's walls 
Fell by her ceaseless rancour undermined \ 
Though woes innumerable thinned the ranks 
The sword had spared, — the wreck of ruined Troy 
Her curse pursues. Why thus incensed with ire, 
She best can tell : what turmoil late she raised 
On Libya's waves thou knowest, — sea and skies 
Her hand commingled, aided by the blasts 
Of ^Eolus, — usurping thy domain. 
E'en now, beguiling with malignant spells 880 

The Trojan dames, she fires the ships, casts forth 
The crews, abandoned, on an unknown shore. 
I ask but this — safe conduct for the fleet 
To reach Laurentian Tiber's banks unharmed \ 
This — if the prayer be lawful — if the Fates 
Concede the long-sought city — I implore.' 

6 Good reason hast thou, Venus,' then replied 
The Ruler of the waves, ' to trust my realm ; 
Thine own it is by birth, and I, in sooth, 
Deserve thy trust. Full often for thy sake 890 



1 84 THE ^ENEID. [802-822 

Rude winds and angry billows have I stilled : 

Nor less on land — be witness Xanthus, thou, 

And Simois, too — ^Eneas was my care • 

What time Achilles hurled in hot pursuit 

Back on their walls the breathless hosts of Troy, 

When thousands fell before him, and the streams 

Were choked with slain: e'en Xanthus scarce made 

way 
Down his encumbered channel to the main. 
Thy hero then, in combat overmatched 
By dread Pelides' arm and adverse Gods, 900 

Wrapt in a cloud I saved — albeit I longed 
To lay that perjured city in the dust 
Which mine own hands had raised. Dismiss thy fears ; 
My purpose stands unchanged \ the Avernian bay, 
That haven long desired — thy son shall gain : 
One only ravished by the waves — one life 
A ransom paid for many — shall he mourn.' 

Soothing the Goddess with such words, the Sire 
Yoked his fleet coursers, foaming as they champed 
Their bits of gold, his slackened reins flung free, 910 
And skimmed with sea-green car the crested tide : 
Stilled is the surge, and levelled by his wheels 
That roll in thunder, sinks the billowy plain, 
While scudding rain-clouds leave the welkin clear. 
Strange shapes and uncouth monsters of the main 



823-847] BOOK V. 185 

Their lord attend — the troop of Glaucus old, 

Palaemon, Phorcus, and his Triton crew ; 

Thalia on his left, and Melite, 

Thetis, and Panopea, sea-nymph fair ; 

Nesaee, Spio, and Cymodoce. 920 

O'er his care-burdened soul iEneas feels 

New gladness steal : he bids his willing crews 

With speed their mainmasts hoist, and bend their sails ; 

All hands the hawsers tug, the sail-yards veer, 

And spread their canvass to the freshening gale. 

His pilot Palinurus leads the van ; 

The rest, observant of his signals, steer. 

Now Night had climbed the pinnacle of heaven ; 
The drowsy seamen, on hard benches stretched 
Beside the oars, their wearied limbs reposed ; 930 
When, parting with his wings the dusky air, 
Sleep softly glided from the star-lit skies : 
Thee, Palinure, he sought ; ill-omened dreams 
For thee devising ; on the poop reclined, 
In shape assumed of Phorbas,, thus he spake : 
1 Son of Iasius, with the tide we float — 
The wind blows calmly — 'tis the hour for rest : 
Steal from thy weary watch a brief repose ; 
Thine office will I take and guide the helm.' 

With eyes scarce raised, the wary mariner 940 

Made answer : ' Canst thou deem me so beguiled 



1 86 THE iENEID. [848-871 

By Ocean's smiling surface, as to trust 

The wily monster in his treacherous calm ? 

Shall I, oft flattered by deceitful skies, 

Betray ^Eneas to the faithless winds ? ' 

This said, he firmly to the steerage clung, 

Nor ever from the stars unfixed his gaze ; 

But the false God a branch with Lethe's stream 

Bedewed, and medicined with Stygian spells, 

Above his temples waved, his faltering sense 950 

O'ermastered, and relaxed his glazing eye. 

Then, as the slumberous influence o'er him stole, 

Grappling the prostrate wretch, he hurled him down, 

With fraction of the stern and shattered helm, 

Amid the waves, imploring help in vain ; 

Himself with wings outspread took flight to Heaven. 

Yet not less swiftly sped the fleet, secure 

In Neptune's promised tutelage. And now 

Close on the Siren's rocky isle they came, 

A dangerous coast of old, and white with bones ; 960 

E'en then the surge beat hoarsely on the crags : 

His ship bereft of pilot, drifting wide, 

The chief perceived, then seized himself the helm, 

And through the darkness steered, bewailing much 

His comrade's fate : ' Too blind, alas ! thy trust 

In sky and waves serene : on this lone strand 

Unburied, Paiinurus, must thou lie ! ' 967 



THE /ENEID 



BOOK VI. 



[I-I4 



BOOK VI. 



Weeping he spake ; then loosed his flowing sails, 
And gained at last Eubaean Cumae's bay : 
There, anchored fast, their beaks to seaward turned, 
With rounded stems the galleys fringe the strand. 
The impatient youth leap eagerly ashore : 
Some strike from veins of flint the imprisoned fire ; 
Some scour the forest, haunt of savage beasts, 
Or trace the winding streamlet to its source. 
But to the sacred heights, Apollo's seat, 
Devout ^Eneas hastes, and that dim cave 10 

Secluded, where the awful Sibyl dwells, 
Whose soul with Divination's mystic lore 
The prophet-God inspires : through Dian's grove 
They pass, and stand beneath her gilded dome. 
'Tis famed that Daedalus, from Minos' realm 
Escaping, on aerial pinions borne, 



190 THE iENEID. [15-36 

Far to the chilly north his flight pursued, 
Till, resting on Chalcidian heights at last, 
He vowed, in homage to the Delian God,. 
Where first he touched the earth, his oar-like wings ; 
Then reared a mighty fane. Upon the gates, 2 1 

Modelled in gold, Androgeos' cruel death 
Was graved ; to expiate that foul murder died 
Seven blooming sons of Athens year by year. 
The fatal urn stood nigh — the lots just drawn. 
In counterview displayed rose sea-girt Crete, 
Pasiphae's monstrous love and secret shame, 
And Minotaur, that misbegotten shape, 
Half-man, half-beast, offspring of lust abhorred. 
Next, miracle of skill, the wondrous maze, 30 

The Labyrinth's inextricable wiles — 
Threaded with clue, which Daedalus supplied, 
In pity to the royal maiden's* love. 
Thou, Icarus, too, could art have mastered grief, 
A place hadst found ; to grave thy fate in gold 
The sculptor twice essayed, twice anguish keen 
Unnerved the parent's hand. With curious gaze 
The Trojans fain would linger o'er the scene; 
But now Achates with the maid returned — 
Priestess of Trivia and of Phoebus too, 40 

Glaucus her sire, Deiphobe her name, 
Who thus addressed the chief : ' Unmeet the time 
* Ariadne. 



37-60] BOOK VI. 191 

For shows like these ; let victims first be slain — 
Seven lusty steers that never felt the yoke, 
Seven spotless ewes.' Her bidding promptly done, 
She bids them all within the temple stand. 

Deep in the mountain's side a cavern vast 
Was scooped, whence, pealing through its hundred 

gates, 
Bursts forth the Sibyl's utterance, hundred-tongued ; 
Beside the porch they stood : ' Now, now,' she cries, 
1 The hour is come ; demand to know thy fate : 5 1 
'Tis he, the God, the God ! ' As thus she spake, 
At once her visage changed, its colour fled r 
Dishevelled was her hair; unearthly seemed 
Her voice \ her form dilated, as more near 
She felt the o'ershadowing presence of the God : 
1 Now to thy prayers, ^Eneas, to thy prayers, 
Else shall these awestruck portals ne'er unclose.' 
No more she said : the Trojans' hardy souls 
Were thrilled with fear j the chief devoutly prayed: 60 
' O, ever piteous to the woes of Troy ! 
Thou who didst aim the Dardan shepherd's dart 
That pierced Achilles' heel — Apollo, hear ! 
Wide oceans have I traversed, thou my guide, 
And many a sea-encircled coast explored, 
E'en to the uttermost Massylian tribes, 
And plains by arid Syrtes belted round : 



192 THE 2ENEID. [61-83 

At last Italians long-sought shores we gained. 

Thus far had Troy's hard fate our race pursued. 

But ye, Celestial Powers, who looked askance 70 

On Ilion's palmy state and old renown. 

Her much-enduring sons afflict no more \ 

Thou, holiest priestess, Heaven-illumined maid, 

Vouchsafe this boon — 'tis mine by Fate's decree : 

To plant on Latian soil our exiled race, 

Our Gods long-banished to their shrines restore ; 

To Phoebus then and Dian will I raise 

A marble fane, and jubilee proclaim 

In honour of the God. Thy mysteries too, 

Dread Virgin, will I reverence, and enshrine 80 

Thine oracles and books of mystic lore 

Among the sacred archives of my realm, 

To chosen priests consigned, — I ask but this : 

Write not thy fleeting utterance on the leaves 

For wanton winds to sport with : let thy lips 

Pronounce the dread decree.' He said no more. 

But frantic now and panting to o'erthrow 
The mastery of her soul-enthralling God, 
The priestess writhes : the imperious Deity 
Her chafing spirit curbs and moulds at will ; 90 

Then with a sudden blast the hundred gates 
Roll backward, and she speaks : ' Escaped at last 
The perils of the main, yet sorer ills 



S4-10S] BOOK VI. 193 

On land await thee : to Laviniunr s coast — 
Mistrust not this — thy Teucrian host shall come. 
Yet rue the hour they came. Wars, horrid wars, 
I see, and Tiber's waves run red with gore. 
Lo ! Xanthus, Simois, Grecian camps appear 
Revived on Tuscan shores : from Latium springs 
A new Achilles — he. too, Goddess-born ; ico 

And Juno's curse enduring cleaves to Troy. 
What tribe, what city in thy sore distress 
Shalt thou not sue for aid ! A foreign bride 
Is Ilion's bane once more. Yet quail not thou 
With troubles sore beset, but undismayed 
Outface the frowns of Fortune : least foreseen, 
Deliverance shall a Grecian city yield.' 

In tones that thundered through the vaulted cave 
The Sibyl raved, with parables obscure 
Commingling truth : the inexorable God, no 

Her fury bridles and incites by turns. 
When hushed her foaming lips and calmed her throes, 
-Eneas spoke : * To me no shape of ill, 
O maiden ! unexpected seems or strange : 
All suffering hath my thoughtful soul presaged. 
One boon I crave : since here, if fame be true, 
-Are those dread portals of the Infernal King, 
That lake whose fount o'erflowing Acheron fills — 
Grant me to see my father's face once more, 

vol. 1. N 



194 THE 2ENEID. [109-130 

In his loved presence stand, — the path declare, 120 

The awful gates unclose. That aged Sire, 

'Mid shower of spears and flames that raged around, 

I rescued on these shoulders from the foe : 

Companion of my wanderings, he endured 

All storms and accidents of sea and sky 

With fortitude beyond the strength of age. 

By his behest impelled, I sought thy shrine. 

Have pity, gentle maid, on sire and son : 

All power is thine ; by Hecate ordained 

High-priestess of the dread Avernian grove. 130 

If Orpheus could his spouse from Hell reclaim, 

Armed but with tuneful chords and Thracian lyre ; 

If Pollux treads so oft the alternate road 

Of life and death, his brother's fate to share — 

Of Theseus or Alcmaena's mighty son 

What need to speak ? — I too claim kin with Jove/ 

Thus, clinging to the altar's side, his prayer 
^Eneas urged : the Virgin Seer replied : 
' Son of Anchises, Heaven-born prince of Troy ! 
Smooth is the downward road that slopes to Hell : 
The infernal gates stand open night and day; 141 
But upward to retrace the steep ascent, 
This, this is toil and pain ! But few have dared 
Such enterprise whom righteous Jove most loved, 
Or high pre-eminence in merit raised 



131-154] BOOK VI. 195 

To rank divine. Adown the path midway 

Stretch boundless forests, and Cocytus winds 

His sable flood. But if such wish be thine, 

Such desperate hardihood, to traverse twice 

The Stygian gulf, grim Tartarus twice explore, 150 

This must thou first achieve : half-hid from view 

Amid a tree's dark verdure hangs a bough, 

Its leaves and slender stalk alike of gold — 

Sacred to Stygian Juno, and enshrined 

Within the umbrageous fastness of the grove. 

None to those nether shades may entrance gain 

But he whose hand hath seized the mystic spray ; 

This tribute beauteous Proserpine demands. 

Soon as the first is plucked, a second shoot 

With golden foliage bursts and sprouts anew : 160 

Search warily aloft, then boldly grasp 

The precious branch ; if thine the destined hand, 

'Twill follow at a touch — else human arm 

Would fail to break, or steel to cleave, the bough. 

Meanwhile, unknown to thee, thy friend's remains 

Unburied lie, and his dishonoured corse 

Thy camp defiles, w T hilst thou before my shrine, 

Inquisitive of Fate, art lingering still. 

First to the dead funereal honours pay ; 

Next slay the dark-fleeced ewes, and to the Gods 

Atonement make : thine eyes may then behold 171 



196 THE iENEID. [155-177 

Hell's awful realms, by mortal foot untrod.' 

This said, her lips were sealed. With downcast 
mien 
Went forth ./Eneas from the cave, perplexed 
With such dark auguries : beside him walked 
Achates, faithful partner of his cares. 
Grave converse held the friends, and much surmised 
Of what neglected corse, what warrior slain, 
The priestess spake. 

Lo ! as they reached the strand, 
Ingloriously dead Misenus lay, 180 

Brave son of ^Eolus, whose trumpet-blast 
Pealed through the ranks and fanned the flames of 

war : 
Once mighty Hector's comrade, skilled alike 
To wind the clarion or the spear to wield. 
When stricken by Achilles Hector fell, 
^Eneas then, not less renowned a chief, 
His valiant henchman followed to the field. 
Him, as with tuneful shell he thrilled the waves 
And challenged all the Gods to match his strain, 
Did jealous Triton, if the tale be true, 190 

Plunge in the foaming billows unawares, 
And dashed him on the rocks. Loud wailing raised 
The Trojans o'er their comrade; most of all, 
-/Eneas mourned his friend : with saddened hearts 



178-201] BOOK VI. I97 

The Sibyl's charge they hasten to fulfil. 

A lofty altar-tomb they build, with trees 

Hewn from an ancient grove, the wild beast's lair. 

Low lies the stately pine, the ilex rings 

With dint of woodman's steel; by wedges riven, 

Yields the stout oak, the ash from mountain-side 

Rolls down : ^Eneas foremost in the throng 201 

Wields the broad axe and cheers his toiling crew. 

As now in melancholy mood the chief 
The far-stretched forest scanned, a sudden prayer 
Burst from his lips : ' O that in yonder grove 
Would flash upon my sight that branch of gold ! 
Since all too true of thee, Misenus, spake 
The prescient Maid.' Scarce uttered were his words, 
When two fair doves came fluttering through the air, 
And lighted on the sward. O'erjoyed to view 210 
The birds his Mother loved, ' Be ye my guides,' 
He cried, ' and by your airy flight denote 
The brake where that bright bough its shadow flings. 
And thou, dear Goddess-mother, in this strait 
Fail not thy son.' With slow and wary steps 
He followed, marking well the ring-doves' track, 
Heedful of every sign. On flew the birds, 
Resting awhile to feed — as fain to lure 
Pursuit, yet not outstrip the gazer's ken. 
Soon as they came abreast the reeking fumes 220 



I98 THE ^ENEID. [202-224 

Of pestilent Avernus, high they soared ; 

Then gliding through the sky, with folded wings 

Perched on the tree, amid whose branches gleamed, 

Checkering its foliage dark, the golden spray. 

As in the wintry forest glimmers green, 

With parasitic tendrils lithely clasped 

Round stems of alien growth, the Misletoe, — 

So flashed the lustrous ore, so quivering waved 

The leafs thin foil, and tinkled in the breeze. 

Exultingly iEneas seized the bough, 230 

And to the Sibyl's cavern bore his prize. 

Meanwhile his mourning comrades on the beach 
Sepulchral honours to the unconscious shade 
Of brave Misenus pay. A lofty pyre 
With planks of oak and unctuous pine they raise ; 
The sides with dark funereal boughs are twined ; 
In front the cypress flings its doleful shade ; 
A trophy of bright arms surmounts the pile. 
Some from the caldron steaming waters pour, 
Bathe and anoint with oil the frigid limbs: 240 

Loud is the wail of grief, as on the couch 
They lay the loved remains, and o'er them fling 
The well-known purple robes their comrade wore. 
Then sadly they uplift the massy bier, 
And with averted face the torch apply, 
As ancient rites enjoin : with frankincense, 



225-247] BOOK VI. 199 

With sacrificial meats and oil outpoured 

They feed the flame. When o'er the embers pale 

Sink the extinguished fires, they drench with wine 

The dust and ashy relics of the dead. 25c 

Then Corinaeus in a brazen urn 

Enshrined the bones ; and next with olive rod, 

In hallowed waters steeped, lustration made, 

Sprinkling the hosts around, and with loud voice 

Bade the heroic shade a last farewell. 

But good -.-Eneas a colossal tomb 

Raised to his friend, and o'er it piled his arms, 

The oar he wielded, and the trump he blew : 

A towering sea-mark on the mountain-peak, 

Misenus called, that guards his fame for aye. — 260 

This done, the Sibyl's bidding he attends. 

Deep in a craggy gorge a cavern yawned ; 
A pitchy lake and forests black as night 
Girdled its depths profound. Xo bird unhanned 
O'er that dread orifice might steer its flight — 
Such baneful exhalation through the air 
Reeked from its murky jaws : by Grecians hence 
Aornos named. And now the priestess takes 
Four sable steers, their foreheads bathes with wine, 
Then crops the budding tufts between their horns — 
Prime offering to the Gods — and calls aloud 271 

On Hecate, adored in Heaven and Hell. 



200 THE ^ENEID. [248-271 

Then in the victims' throats the knife is fleshed, 
And bowls receive the blood. ^Eneas' next 
To Earth, and to her sable sister Night, 
Mother of Furies, slays a coal-black lamb ; 
A barren heifer, Proserpine, to thee : 
Then at the altar of the Infernal King, 
Heaping the flames with flesh of mighty bulls, 
Rich unguent on the steaming entrails pours. 280 
Scarce had the dawn begun to break, when, lo ! 
Loud rumblings shook the earth, the hill-tops quaked, 
And howling dogs amid the gloom announced 
The Goddess near : ' Avaunt ! ye souls profane, 
Avaunt ! ; the Sibyl shrieks, c and quit the grove. 
Thou, prince, march boldly on and bare thy sword : 
With all thy courage, Trojan, arm thee now.' 
Then madly down the yawning gulf she plunged ; 
He with unwavering steps his guide pursued. 

Ye Gods that rule the ghastly realms of death ! 290 
Ye disembodied Shades ! ye awful Powers 
Chaos and Phlegethon ! may I unblamed 
Speak what mine ears have heard ! your depths unveil, 
In silence wrapt and everlasting night ? 
Along the void unpeopled plains of Hell, 
Darkling they went, the solitary pair : 
As when the fitful moon with sickly ray 
Gleams on the traveller's path in forest dim, 



272-296] BOOK VI. 201 

When vapours clog the air, and every shape 
In that weird light looks colourless and pale. 300 

Beside the threshold, in the jaws of Hell, 
Sorrow and carking Cares their couch had made, 
And wan Disease and melancholy Eld, 
Base Fear, and Hunger, counsellor of ill, 
Terrific shapes, appeared : then Toil and Death, 
And Death's twin-brother Sleep and guilty Joys. 
Darkening the porch, War's horrid front was seen, 
The Furies on their steely beds, and Strife, 
Her snaky locks with blood-red fillets bound. 
Athwart the path an ancient bowery elm 310 

Its arms outspread • there, clinging to the leaves, 
Swarms of fantastic dreams their covert made. 
Around were apparitions strange and births 
Portentous \ Centaurs stabling in the gates, 
Half-human Scyllas, and the hundred heads 
Of Briareus, and Lerna's hissing pest, 
Chimaeras belching flames, foul Harpy fiends, 
And Geryon's threefold shape, and Gorgons dire. 

Scared at the sight, /Eneas grasped his blade, 
And had not she, his sage companion, warned 320 
These were but lifeless phantoms, shapes of air, 
His sword had cleft their ghostly ranks in vain. 

From thence to murky Acheron lay the road — 
That lake whose whirling current, foul with slime, 



202 THE ^ENEID. [297-318 

Disgorges its offscourings in the bed 

Of deep Cocytus. O'er these streams keeps guard 

Charon, grim ferryman, whose aspect foul 

Appals the sight : his locks unkempt, his chin 

Shagged with a hoary wilderness of beard ; 

His eyes aglow with fire, his gaberdine, 330 

Tattered and vile, about his shoulders hung. 

He with a pole impels, and speeds with sail 

His dingy craft, and ferries o'er the pool 

His shadowy freight — a veteran seems the God 

In years, but stalwart in his lusty age. 

A motley throng came flocking to the marge : 

Matrons and bearded men, and youths and maids, 

And ghosts of mighty chiefs whose race was run, 

And children on untimely biers in sight 

Of parents laid ; in number infinite, 340 

As leaves that strew the woods in early frost 

Of autumn, or the innumerable birds 

Whom the chill blast of winter o'er the sea 

Drives forth to sunnier climes. Upon the brink 

With arms outstretched, all yearning to depart 

And gain the further shore, the phantoms stand : 

By turns the sullen boatman takes aboard 

Now these, now those ; some rudely thrusts away. 

^Eneas, lost in wonderment, exclaims : 
'Say, heavenly maid, what mean these thronging souls? 



319-343] BOOK VI. 203 

Why this tumultuous concourse on the strand? 351 

Those shades repelled — these ferried o'er the wave ? ' 

Briefly the maid replied : ' Anchises' son, 

True scion of the Immortals ! you behold 

Cocytus and the awful Stygian pool, 

Which Gods adjure, nor dare to slight the vow. 

Lo ! Charon there — his freight the buried dead : 

Yon outcast souls no sepulture have found ; 

Nor, till their mortal limbs in earth repose, 

May cross the abhorred gulf. A hundred years 360 

Their flitting spectres hover round the brink, 

Then gain at last dismissal o'er the stream.' 

In sorrowful amaze ^Eneas stood, 

Moved with compassion for their helpless plight. 

Amid the sad dishonoured crowd his eye 

Glanced on Leucaspis, and that captain brave 

Of Lycian ships, Orontes, whom the gale 

Dashed on the rocks, engulfing bark and crew, 

When o'er the stormy waves they sailed from Troy. 

The pilot Palinurus next appears, 370 

Late, on his Libyan voyage, from the helm 

Plunged in the billows, as he watched the stars : 

Him, through the murky twilight dimly seen, 

The chief addressed : ' O Palinurus ! say, 

What fate befell thee ? by what envious God 

Hurled in the deep ? Thy death alone belied 



204 THE iENEID. [344-366 

Apollo's words — else truthful ever found ; 
For thee safe advent to Ausonia's shores, 
Unscathed by storm, the Deity foretold : 
Thus keeps he faith?' 'Nay, prince,' the shade 
replied, 380 

' Nor oracle of Phoebus played thee false, 
Nor wrought a God my fall. Sure watch I kept, 
Guiding the helm, when, lo ! the vessel's stern 
Parted in twain, and whelmed me in the deep. 
Be that wild sea my witness that I felt 
Less for my own sad plight than fear for thee, 
Should thy dismantled bark, of pilot reft, 
Sink in the surging tide. Three wintry nights, 
Tossed to and fro by blustering southern gales, 
I drifted on the waves; the fourth day dawned, 390 
When from the billow's crest obscurely seen 
Rose Italy to view : with much ado 
I swam to shore, and deemed my perils o'er, 
When some inhuman tribe, on plunder bent, 
With swords assailed me, as the rugged rocks 
I clutched, encumbered with my dripping garb ; 
Now vexed with winds and waves my relics lie. 
O ! by the genial light and air of Heaven, 
By thy dear sire Anchises, by the hopes 
Of young Ascanius, save me from this woe, 400 

Unconquered chief! Or back to Velia's port 



367-3S8] BOOK VI. 205 

Thy vessels steer, and on my hapless corse 

Some dole of earth bestow • or, if perchance 

Thy heavenly Mother may vouchsafe her aid 

(For surely 'tis some God impels thee now 

To cross the bottomless Tartarean pool), 

Reach forth thy hand and guide me o'er the stream ; 

Then shall my weary ghost in peace repose.' 

Sternly the Seer rebuked him : ' Hath thy mind, 

O Palinure! such impious wish conceived? 410 

Canst thou, unsepulchred, the Stygian lake, 

Haunt of the accursed Sisterhood, behold ? 

Unbidden wouldst thou tread this awful strand ? 

Deem not that Heaven's decrees are changed by 

prayer ; — 
Vet in thy sore distress this solace take : 
For thy foul murder shall the bordering tribes, 
Warned by celestial signs, atonement make, 
Raise o'er thy bones a lofty pile, and rites 
Ordained fulfil ; for ever shall the name 
Of Palinurus mark the pilot's grave.' 420 

He listened and was soothed ; the thought of lands 
Entitled by his name his spirit cheered. 

Now speeding on their way, beside the stream 
The pilgrims came, whom, ere they reached the banks, 
Observing from his skiff the boatman stern 
Challenged aloud, and thus the chief addressed : 



206 THE 2ENEID. [3S9-413 

' What errand brings thee here, a warrior armed ? 

Stay thy rash foot, intruder, come not near. 

These are the realms of Sleep and drowsy Night ; 

This Stygian raft no living soul may bear. 430 

Nor had I cause for joy that once my bark 

Pirithoiis, Theseus, Hercules conveyed — 

The last Hell's yelling watch-dog bound in chains, 

And dragged the cowering beast from Pluto's throne ; 

Those daring ravishers would fain have torn 

E'en from the couch of Dis his beauteous queen.' 

c Fear not,' the Sibyl answered, ' such designs 

We own not, nor bespeak these arms a foe. 

Still may the blatant beast with ceaseless howl 

Scare the pale ghosts ; still Proserpine may guard 440 

With fame unstained her consort-uncle's bed, — 

^Eneas, Prince of Troy, renowned alike 

For warlike deeds and piety, hath come 

To seek his father here. If filial love 

Heroic fails to move thee, look on this.' 

Then from her robe the golden spray she drew. 

At once the -wrathful pilot's anger fell ; 

No more he said, but, wrapt in wonderment, 

Gazed on the mystic bough, unseen so long. 

Then to the margin drove his dusky prow, 450 

And thrusting from their seats a ghostly crowd, 

The hatches cleared, and in the hold received 



4H-434] BOOK VI. 207 

The stalwart chief : the patched and crazy bark 
Creaked with its load, and opened to the waves 
Its leaking sides ; yet safely bore at last, 
Amid the slimy sedge, the twain to land. 

There Cerberus, the three-necked Warder huge, 
Couched in his grisly den before the gates, 
Stunned all the infernal precincts with his roar ; 
The priestess, as his snake-encircled throats 460 

He raised, a cake, with soporific drugs 
And honey steeped, before the monster flung. 
He, gaunt with hunger, oped his triple jaws 
And gorged the food ; at once his giant limbs 
Relaxed, his hideous length along the cave 
Extended lay. ^Eneas swiftly seized 
The unguarded pass, and left the stream behind, 
Which whoso passeth once, hath passed for aye. 

Now from the porch a sound of voices came 
In concert sad : the wail of infant souls, 470 

Whom, from their mother's breasts untimely torn, 
Robbed of their heritage of joyous life, 
Fell Death immersed in darkness. Next were they 
By man's unrighteous sentence doomed to die : 
These have their trial still, nor pass the gates 
Unchallenged. Minos, stern inquisitor, 
Presides in judgment, cites before his bar 
The trembling shades ; their lives, their crimes reviews. 



208 THE 2ENEID. [435-456 

To them succeeds a melancholy band, 

Who, loathing light, yet innocent of crime, 480 

Flung life away : thrice happy, might they now 

Brave toil and penury in the realms of day. 

Fate bars retreat ; dark Acheron hems them round, 

And Styx with ninefold current interposed. 

Thence, stretching far, the c Mourning Fields ' are 
seen. 
Here, wandering in sequestered paths, with groves 
Of myrtle screened, are they who drooped and died 
By the slow pangs of unrequited love : 
Not e'en in death their anguish finds repose. 
Phaedra and Procris here ^Eneas sees ; 490 

And Eriphyle, pointing to the wounds 
Her ruthless son had made ; Pasiphae here, 
Laodamia, and Evadne dwell, 
And Ceneus, once a man, a woman now, 
Here to her pristine shape by death restored. 
Among the rest, the Carthaginian queen, 
With wounds yet reeking, Dido, paced the grove : 
Her through the twilight shade the chief descried, 
As one who, when the moon is newly born, 
Amid the gloaming sees, or deems he sees, 500 

Veiled in transparent clouds her image pale. 
Melted to tears, in love's soft tones he spake : 
' Ill-fated queen ! the tidings then were true 



457-4S0] BOOK VI. 209 

That thou hadst perished in despair, self-slain ; — 
Was I, alas ! thy murderer ? By the stars, 
The Powers above — and if these nether realms 
Lend aught of sanction to an oath — I swear, 
Unwillingly I left thy realm. The Gods, 
Who bid me now Hell's loathsome depths explore, 
Left me no choice but flight. I little deemed, 510 
Departing, to inflict so keen a wound. 
Nay, turn not thus away, but pause awhile ; 
Recoil not from my gaze, nor scorn my words, 
The last my lips shall utter in thine ears.' 
With such fond pleadings, weeping as he spake, 
^Eneas strove to soothe her wrathful mien. 
Fixed on the ground her stern averted eyes 
She kept : as well might prayers avail to move 
The insensate flint, or melt Marpesian stone. 
Then hurrying from his sight she sought the grove 
Where her first spouse, Sichaeus, kindred soul, 521 
Grieved with her grief, and love for love returned. 
Touched by her piteous destiny, the chief 
With wistful eyes gazed after her and wept. 

Then onward they advanced, and gained at last 
The confines of the plain, secluded haunt 
Of mighty warriors. Tydeus here they found, 
Parthenopaeus, famed in battle-field, 

vol. 1. o 



210 THE ^ENEID. [481-502 

And that pale phantom once Adrastus named. 
Here, too, were Troy's brave champions, much be- 
moaned 530 
In upper air : ./Eneas with deep sigh 
Beheld their lengthened ranks, — Glaucus was there, 
Thersilochus and Medon — three brave chiefs, 
Sons of Antenor ; Polybaetes, too, 
Whom Ceres owned her priest ; Ideaus still 
The whirling chariot urged, still grasped the reins. 
Around their visitant the spectres thronged, 
Nor stood content to gaze, but held him long 
In converse ; much inquiring for what end 
He sought the realms of Night. But Graecia's chiefs 
And Agamemnon's hosts with terror quailed 541 
As flashed the hero's armour through the gloom, — 
Some turned to flight, as erst at Troy they sought 
The covert of their ships ; some strove to raise 
An ineffectual shout — the cry, still-born, 
Died on their gasping lips. 

Next Priam's son, 
Deiphobus, appeared — his visage seamed 
With ignominious scars, his nostrils gashed, 
Shorn of his ears and hands : that mangled shape, 
Cowering to hide its shame, his friend scarce knew : 
' Deiphobus,' he cried, 'thou valiant knight, ' 551 
True heir of Teucers line, what barbarous hand 



503-523] BOOK VI. 211 

Such vengeance wreaked ? — who dealt those ghastly 

wounds ? 
'Twas rumoured thou, on Ilion's fatal night, 
Wearied with carnage of unnumbered Greeks, 
Hadst sunk on heaps of dead confusedly piled. 
Then, careful of thy fame, a cenotaph 
I built thee on Rhoeteum's lofty shore, 
And thrice invoked thy shade — thy name and arms 
Mark well the spot : thyself I might not find, 560 
Dear friend, nor lay thy dust in Dardan soil.' 
Then Priam's son made answer : ' Well thy part 
Was done — all honours to my relics paid ; 
Mine own hard fortune, and the accursed wiles 
Of that Lacaenian traitress, wrought my fall : 
These parting tokens of her love she gave. 
Need I remind thee? — who can e'er forget? — 
How in mad mirth we spent that night of woe, 
When o'er our ramparts stalked the fateful horse, 
Teeming with steel-clad men. In dancing guise 570 
A tribe of Phrygian Bacchanals she led, 
Herself a torch amid the orgies bore. 
And from the fort waved signals to the foe. 
As wearied on my ill-starred couch I lay, 
And on my eyelids fell sleep's soothing balm, 
Deep as the dreamless slumber of the dead, 
My peerless spouse our mansion stripped of arms, 



212 THE 2ENEID. [524-547 

And stole my trusty falchion from my side ; 

To Menelaus then unclosed the doors — 

Fain by such service to her amorous lord 580 

To earn oblivion for her past misdeeds. 

Why linger o'er the tale ? The Greeks burst in — 

Ulysses, soul of mischief, with the rest. 

Requite such outrage on their heads, ye Gods, 

If righteous prayer be mine ! But tell me now 

What errand brings thee here, a living man ? 

Hath Heaven's own mandate, or mischance of sea, 

Or stress of Fortune, urged thee to explore 

These joyless realms that never saw the sun ? ; 

Such converse held they till the car of day, 590 
With roseate wheels, had traversed half the Heaven, 
And all their time in fond discourse had sped ; 
But now the Sibyl spoke : c Night falls apace, 
^Eneas ; weeping thus, we waste the hours. 
Henceforth the road, diverging, parts in twain — 
The right to Stygian Jove's pavilion leads 
And blest Elysium ; Tartarus on the left, 
Abode of crime and penal torment, lies/ 
6 Nay, chide not, gracious prophetess/ the Shade 
Replied. ' I go, and hasten to fulfil 600 

My term of durance in the house of gloom. 
Pride of our race, illustrious chief, farewell ! 
May happier Fates attend thee ! ' Suddenly 



54S-569] BOOK VI. 213 

He turned, and as he spake was lost to view. 

^Eneas gazed around : beneath a rock 
That beetled on the left, a fortress rose, 
With triple walls encircled ; round its base 
Rolled fiery-flowing Phlegethon, with sound 
Of thunder whirling down the rocky gorge. 
A gate, with adamantine columns huge, 610 

Fronted the pass : no might of mortal men, 
Nor all the embattled Gods, could burst its bars. 
An iron tower stood near ; before the porch 
Tisiphone, in vesture dyed with blood, 
Keeps watch and ward unceasing night and day : 
Hence agonising cries and scourgings dire, 
And grating bolts are heard and clanking chains. 
Affrighted at the din ^Eneas stood : 
' Say, holy maid, what scenes of guilt are here ? — 
What tortures of the damned? — what shrieks of woe? f 
' Great chief of Troy,' the prophetess replied, 621 

' These courts accurst no guiltless foot may tread. 
To me, when to my guardianship she gave 
The Avernian grove, did Hecate reveal 
The secrets of this prison-house of woe. 
Here Rhadamanthus holds his awful court, 
Unmasks deceit, and from the conscious souls 
Confession wrings of crimes by fraud concealed, 
Till death exacts atonement, late but sure. 



214 THE ^ENEID. [570-593 

Then fell Tisiphone, insulting fiend, 630 

Leaps on the felon spectres, scourge in hand, 
And brandishing aloft her knotted snakes, 
Goads on her sister Furies to their prey. 

6 Lo ! now on grating hinges backward roll 
The infernal gates. Mark you what horrid shape 
Cowers at the porch — what hideous sentinel 
The threshold guards ! — a Hydra, fiercer still, 
With fifty yawning throats, lies couched within. 
As deep the abyss and sheer descent of Hell, 
As measures twice the space 'twixt earth and sky. 
Down in the lowest pit, by lightning scathed, 641 
Earth's ancient brood, the Titans weltering lie. 
With those twin giants of Aloeus born, 
Who fain would storm the battlements of Heaven, 
And drag the all-puissant Thunderer from his throne. 
Salmoneus, too, I saw with tortures racked, 
Who dared to counterfeit the Olympian peal, 
And Jove's own fires : he, with four harnessed 

steeds, 
Flaunting his fiery torch, along the streets 
Of Elis drove, and in the sight of Greece 650 

Usurped the honours of the Gods. Vain fool ! 
To mock with tramp of horse and brazen clang 
The inimitable thunderbolts of Heaven ? 
Him, not with smouldering brand or cresset dim, 



» 



594-615] BOOK VI. 215 

But with red lightning from the livid cloud, 

The Omnipotent hurled headlong to the Shades. 

There Tityos, offspring of all-nurturing Earth, 

Lies stretched full forty roods the rocks along ; 

"While on his never-dying entrails preys, 

With forky talons delving in the flesh, 660 

The vulture huge, and battens on his breast. 

Tearing the fibrous core that grows afresh 

With endless renovation. Need I speak 

Of Lapithae, or Ixion's dreadful doom, 

Or thine, Pirithous ? Ever o'er their heads 

Impends the falling rock that never falls ; 

Rich couches gleam with pedestals of gold. 

And sumptuous feasts are spread before their gaze : 

Lo ! at the banquet sits the Fury Queen, 

And from the untasted food the famished ghosts 670 

With brandished torch and voice of thunder, scares. 

1 In durance here the souls await their doom, 
Who, living, 'gainst a brother burned with hate, 
Who smote a parent or a client wronged. 
Or brooded o'er their hoarded wealth, withheld 
From other's need ; — a countless legion these — 
Or died the adulterer's death for bed defiled, 
Or raised the banner of unnatural war, 
Or master's trust perfidiously betrayed. 
What destinv of sufferance waits on each 680 



2l6 THE .EXEID. [616-635 

'Twere fruitless to inquire. Some upward roll 

The huge recoiling stone, or on the spokes 

Of wheels extended hang — in fixed despair 

There sits unhappy Theseus, and shall sit 

To endless time ; and Phlegyas ever chants 

The same sad warning, and proclaims aloud, 

" Revere the Gods, ye mortals, and be just." 

This sold his country's liberties for gold, 

Imposed a tyrant's yoke, and for base gain 

Changed to and fro the landmarks of the law; 690 

That stained with foul embrace a daughter's bed ; 

Each dared some nameless prodigy of guilt, 

And triumphed in his daring. Vain the task, 

Had I a hundred throats and lungs of steel, 

To number all the enormities of crime, 

And endless catalogue of penal woes/ 

Thus spake the ancient Prophetess : ' But now 
Speed onward to thy destined task,' she cried ; 
' Already, by Cyclopean forges wrought, 
The palace-walls of Dis, and those huge gates 700 
Whose threshold fronts our path, are plain to view : 
'Tis here our offering must be paid.' She ceased ; 
Then straightway down the darkling path they strode, 
The intermediate region swiftly passed, 
And gained the portal. With unfaltering step 
Entered the chief j with flowing stream his limbs 



i 



636-657] BOOK VI. 217 

He bathed, then o'er the lintel fixed the bough. 
And now, their homage to the Goddess paid, 
To joyous regions, ever-blooming bowers, 
Delightsome groves, and mansions of the blest, 710 
Their pathway led. An ampler, purer air 
Floats round and bathes in light the glowing clime ; 
Its own bright sun and stars illume the sky. 
In friendly strife disporting in the lists, 
Or wrestling on the sands, the ghosts are seen. 
Some to the dance beat time, or carols sing. 
In flowing robe, the Thracian prophet-bard * 
Wakes Music's sevenfold notes, and sweeps the lyre 
With glancing fingers or with ivory bow. 
Here rest the high-souled chiefs of Teucer's line, 
True warriors of the old heroic time, 721 

Assaracus and Linus — mighty names — 
And Troy's great founder, Dardanus. With awe 
^Eneas views their arms and shadowy cars : 
Fixed in the ground their spears ; their coursers graze 
Unharnessed o'er the plain, — the same delight 
In show of glittering arms, the same fond pride 
Of glossy steed and chariot that inspired 
The living hero's soul, outlasts the grave. 
Stretched on the grassy sward are others seen, 730 
With feast and symphonies of joyous song 
* Orpheus. 



2l8 THE iENEID. [658-681 

Whiling the hours ; around them laurel groves 

Shed fragrance, and with ample tide rolls down 

His earth-born stream Eridanus. Here dwell 

Patriots, who, battling for their country, bled ; 

Priests undefiled, and holy bards who sang 

Strains such as Phcebus loves; and they whose minds 

Inventive by new arts embellished life ; 

And they whose deeds beneficent are shrined 

In grateful memories — with snow-white wreaths 740 

These all are crowned. The Sibyl this bright throng 

Addressed ; but first Musaeus, as he stood 

The centre of a group, surpassing all 

In form majestic : ' Tell me, happy souls, 

And thou, blest minstrel, in what region dwells 

Renowned Anchises ? Hither have we come, 

And crossed Hell's awful gulf, to find his shade.' 

Briefly the bard replied : ' No fixed abode 

Is ours ; we rove at large in bosky glades, 

On grassy slopes repose, and haunt the meads 750 

With freshening rivulets green : from yonder height 

Would ye so far ascend, the path is plain.' 

He led the way, and from the summit showed 

The glittering champaign; — thither sped the pair. 

It chanced that in a green sequestered vale 
The patriarch chief Anchises, wrapt in thought, 
Was musing on the souls, secluded now, 



I 



682-700] BOOK VI. 219 

But destined soon to rise to upper day : 

Before his prescient gaze in vision passed 

His own dear progeny, — of each in turn 760 

The fortunes, fates, achievements, he surveyed ; 

But when ^Eneas o'er the sward he spied 

Advancing, both his arms in ecstasy 

Of joy the Sire outflung — his eyes with tears 

Brimmed o'er — his lips found utterance : c Art thou 

come, 
long desired ? — and hath thy filial love 
Surmounted all the terrors of the way ? 
And may I see thee face to face once more? 
And talk with thee in old familiar strain ? 
Surely my heart with no vain forecast deemed 770 
Our meeting near, computing well the time. 
What perilous adventures hast thou braved ! 
What tracts of land and ocean travelled o'er, 
Since last these arms embraced thee ! How I feared 
Lest Libya's witcheries should work thee ill ! ' 
' 'Twas thou, dear Sire,' ./Eneas made reply, 
' Twas thy sad ghost, that many a time and oft, 
Urged me to seek thee here. On Tuscan seas 
My galleys safely ride. O bid me clasp 
Thy hand in mine, nor shun this last embrace !' 780 
Tears down his cheeks were coursing as he spake 5 
Thrice round that form beloved his arms he flung, 



220 



THE ^ENEID. 



[701-724 



Thrice mocked his grasp the unsubstantial shade, 
Fleet as the wind, and transient as a dream. 

Meanwhile a sheltered glen, with rustling brakes. 
The hero sees, and Lethe's placid stream 
Skirting the blest abodes : beside the banks 
Hovered a countless host of tribes and tongues — 
Like bees that on the flowers in summer's prime 
Alight, and round the snow-white lilies cling, 790 

While all the air their droning murmur fills. 
Amazed the chief inquires : ' What stream is this ? 
What multitudinous concourse on the banks ? ' 
' These souls,' his Sire replied, ' hath Fate decreed 
To wear transmuted forms in upper air ; 
But first at Lethe's opiate springs they quaff 
The anodyne of deep forgetfulness. 
Oft have I wished before thee to array 
These embryo forms, my progeny unborn : 
So shalt thou more delight thee in the prize 800 

Of thine Italian realm/ ' Nay, can it be/ 
His son rejoined, 'that souls emancipate 
From earth should travel back the weary round, 
And seek reunion with their fleshly load ? 
Infatuate ! whom such greed of life beguiles ? ' 
' Attend and thou shalt learn,' his Sire replied ; 
Then all the wondrous mystery unveiled. 

' Know first that Earth and Sky, the Ocean plains, 



? 



725-746] BOOK VI. 221 

The Moon's clear orb, the Stars and giant Sun, 

By one indwelling Spirit are sustained — 810 

One all-informing Mind, that breathes and moves 

Through every pulse of that stupendous whole ; 

To all created things the fount of life, — 

Men, beasts and fowls, and monsters of the deep. 

A fiery force and energy inspire 

The vital germ, though in base contact held 

With sluggish earth and perishable frame. 

Hence passions spring — joy, anguish, fear, desire ; 

Nor can blind mortals, in their bondage dim, 

Pierce the dull mist and lift their gaze to Heaven ; 

Nor e'en when life forsakes them, do the plagues 821 

That haunt the earthly tenement depart, 

But cling by long companionship ingrained : 

Therefore must guilty souls their crimes atone 

By penal chastisement. Some stretched on high 

Are blanched by winds \ some rid them of their 

stains, 
Cleansed by immersion in the vasty deep, 
Or, burnt away by purgatorial fires : 
Each shade its own ordeal must endure. 
Thence to Elysian plains, from sufferance freed, 830 
They pass ■ but few those blissful seats attain 
Till lapse of slow-revolving years hath purged 
From foul commixture, every taint erased, 



222 THE yENEID. [747-769 

The pure ethereal germ and spark divine. 
But when a thousand years their round have run, 
Myriads of ghosts, convened at Lethe, drink 
Oblivion : thence, unconscious of the past, 
They long to wear corporeal forms once more, 
And rise to upper day.' Thus spake the Sire, 
And through the murmuring concourse to a mound 
Contiguous led the chief and Sibyl maid ; 841 

Thence the long file of phantoms as they passed 
Bade them observe, and scan their aspect well. 
' Mark now, my son, and learn the destinies 
Of those illustrious souls, whom Italy 
Upon the old heroic stock of Troy 
Shall graft, and add new lustre to our name. 
Yon stripling see, who on his headless spear 
Stands leaning, nearest to the gates of life, 
And foremost claimant to the realms of day? 850 
Mixed in his veins Ausonian blood shall flow : 
Silvius of Alba named, thy last-born son, 
Whom in the sylvan glades thy destined spouse 
To thee Lavinia in thine age shall bear ; 
A king himself, and sire of kings to be — 
First of our race Long Alba's crown to wear. 
Next Procas, glory of the Teucrian line ; 
Capys and Numitor ; thy namesake, too, 
Alike for piety and arms renowned 



f 



770-790] BOOK VI. 223 

(Should Fate permit to mount his Alban throne), 860 

Silvius ^Eneas. Lo ! what forms are there ! 

What might of lusty youth ! and round their brows 

The patriot's civic wreath, the oak, is twined. 

These shall strong bulwarks for thy kingdom build — 

Nomentum, Gabii, and Fidenae's walls, 

Collatia towering on her castled steep ; 

Pometia, and the fort of Inuus — towns 

In days to come illustrious, nameless now. 

See ! Romulus beside his grandsire stands, 

Whom Ilia, priestess of pure Dardan blood, 870 

To Mars shall bear ! Lo ! blazing on his helm 

The double plume, and stamped upon his brow 

The signet of paternal Deity ; 

By him with glorious auspices begun, 

Encircling with one wall her sevenfold hill, 

Rome, queen of nations, shall her empire bound 

By earth, her lofty spirit by the skies, 

Rich in heroic progeny of sons. 

So rides in triumph through her Phrygian realms 

The Berecynthian mother, crowned with towers, 880 

Prolific parent of a hundred Gods, 

All throned on high, all denizens of Heaven. 

c Now yonder turn thine eyes \ thy sons behold — 
Thine own illustrious Romans — Caesar there, 
And seed that from lulus' loins shall spring, 



224 THE MNEID. [791-81 1 

Await their earthly heritage of fame. 

There, there, thy great descendant, promised long, 

Child of the Gods, Augustus Caesar, stands — 

Restorer of the antique age of gold. 

O'er Latian plains, where Saturn reigned of yore \ 

Lord of a wide-extended realm that far 891 

Outlies the bounds of Garamant or Ind ; 

Beyond the Planets' range and Solar way ; 

Where Atlas on his shoulders heaves the skies 

With stars bejewelled. As his hour draws nigh, 

The Caspian and Maeotian tribes, appalled, 

Quake at the dismal auguries of their Gods, 

And turbid flow the streams of seven-mouthed Nile. 

Not Hercules such boundless tracts o'erran, 

Albeit he pierced the brazen-footed hind, 900 

Freed from their scourge the Erymanthian glades, 

And quelled the Lernian monster with his bow ; 

Nor Bacchus, who with vine-encircled reins 

His harnessed tigers drives down Nysa's steep. 

And doubt we to extend our fame by deeds, 

Or shrink disheartened from the Ausonian shore ? 

' But who comes next, with olive chaplet crowned, 
The priestly censer in his hands ? I know 
Thy hoary locks and beard, thou Roman king. * 
New founder of the State by well-framed laws ; 910 
* Numa Pompilius. 



r 



812-830] BOOK VI. 225 

Called from thy niggard soil and petty realm 

Of Cures, to ascend a loftier throne. 

Him follows Tullus, who with trumpet-blast 

Shall break the dreams of peace, and rouse to arms 

His sluggish hosts, to conquest long disused. 

Ancus comes next, vainglorious prince, e'en now 

Too greedy of the shouting mob's applause. 

Or would you see the kings of Tarquin's line, 

And Brutus the avenger, haughty soul ! 

Who freedom's ravished emblems shall restore ? 920 

Him first shall men hail Consul : the dread axe 

Before him shall be borne \ and his own sons, 

In traitorous arms against their country leagued, 

The unpitying father shall adjudge to die, 

In Liberty's dear cause. O sorely tried ! 

Howe'er posterity account the deed, 

Thy patriot zeal, insatiate of renown, 

Shall bear the palm. 

The Decii, Drusi, see, 
And stern Torquatus with the headsman's steel ; 
And there, with standards rescued from the Gaul, 
Camillus stands. Mark now yon warrior pair, 931 
In arms alike ; here, in their darkling state 
Congenial souls. Ah ! when their day of life 
Shall dawn, what deadly combat shall they wage, 
What hosts shall clash, what streams of carnage flow ! 

VOL. I. P 



226 THE .ENEID. [831-846 

One chief* from Alpine citadel descends, 

His kinsman t leads the embattled East to war. 

Cease, cease, my sons, the unhallowed strife, nor 

pierce 
Your country's bosom with her own sharp steel ; 
Thou, offspring of Olympus, mine own blood, 940 
First fling thy weapons down. 

Lo ! near thee stands 
One j who, in conquering car with blood of Greeks 
Imbrued, shall to the Capitol bear home 
The spoils of vanquished Corinth. 

Yonder shade § 
Shall Agamemnon's haughty towers destroy, 
Lay Argos low, and that Thessalian king || — 
Who boasts ^Eacian blood, and claims for sire 
Achilles the invincible — overthrow ; 
Avenging his great ancestors who died 
At Ilium, and Minerva's outraged fane. 950 

6 Who, Cato, thy great name, or Cossus thine, 
Could pass untold ? the Gracchi, glorious clan, 
Or Scipios, those twin thunderbolts of war, 
Scourges of Lybia ? or Fabricius, rich 
In low estate ? or thee, content to sow 
Thy glebe, Serranus ? Spare my failing breath, 

* Julius Caesar. t Pompey. + Mummius. 

§ Paulus ^Emilius. || Perseus, King of Macedon. 



p 



847-S64] BOOK VI. 227 

Ye Fabii: thou, the Greatest* — thou alone 
By masterly delay shalt save the State ! 

' Let others mould in bronze the lifelike form, 
Or carve the breathing lineaments in stone ; 960 

Plead at the bar with more persuasive skill, 
Or count the constellations as they rise, 
And map their wanderings on the chart of Heaven, — 
Be thine the imperial privilege to reign, 
And bow the nations, Roman, to thy sway ; 
With peaceful rule to discipline mankind, 
The vanquished spare, but crush the haughty foe.' 

Awhile Anchises paused, but as they gazed 
In silent wonder wrapt, his theme pursued : 
' See there Marcellus, crowned with gorgeous spoils, 
In pride of conquest towering o'er his peers ; 971 

He, when the State is rocked with wild alarms, 
Shall stay the tottering fabric, trample down 
The Carthaginian and rebellious Gaul, 
And the third trophy of triumphal arms 
Raise to Feretrian Jove.' 

But now a youth 
Beside the elder chief iEneas sees, 
Clad in resplendent arms, and passing fair ; 
But grave his mien and downcast is his brow. 
1 Say, father, who is this? — the hero's son, 980 

* Fabius Maximus Cunctator. 



228 THE JENEID. [865-884 

Perchance, or distant offshoot of his line ? 

What murmur of attendants round the boy ! 

What dignity of bearing all his own ! 

But o'er him hovers Night's funereal shade/ 

Tears gushed unbidden as his Sire replied : 

c Seek not, my son, to learn the heaviest grief 

That o'er thy house impends : that godlike boy 

Shall envious Fate a moment lend to earth, 

Then snatch the boon away ; but, O ye Gods ! 

Well might ye deem our progeny too blest, 990 

Could Rome such prize retain. Ah me ! what groans, 

Wrung from the breasts of warriors, shall be heard 

On that broad plain beside the towers of Mars ! 

What mournful pageant shall thy stream behold, 

O Tiber, gliding by his new-made grave ! 

Never shall child of Troy with such fond hopes 

Inspire his Latian fathers, never Rome 

So proudly hail the promise of a son. 

O piety ! O pure and pristine faith ! 

O valour, irresistible in arms ! 1000 

Woe to the foeman that shall face his steel — 

Whether he heads afoot the charging ranks, 

Or digs the rowels in his foam-flecked steed ! 

Dear child of sorrow, should stern Fate allow 

To burst the cloud, Marcellus shalt thou be ! 

Bring lilies in your arms a plenteous pile ; 



885-902] BOOK VI. 229 

Be this sad office mine, with purple flowers 
To strew my kinsman's early grave, and pay 
This unavailing homage to his shade.' 

Thus wandering through the spacious fields of air, 
They traversed all the region; all in turn 10 11 

Surveyed : Anchises to his son the while 
The secrets of futurity unveiled, 
And fired his breast with visions of renown ; 
Forewarned him, too, of conflicts yet to come — 
Of King Latinus and Laurentian tribes ; 
What perils must be braved, what toils endured. 

The gates of Sleep are twain — the first of horn, 
Whence truthful spirits on their errands speed ; 
The other of transparent ivory wrought, 1020 

Whence baseless visions of the night ascend. 
Through this fair portal sent Anchises forth — 
His fond discourse continuing to the last — 
To upper day the Sibyl and his son. 
He to the ships, impatient to rejoin 
His comrades, hied in haste ; along the coast 
Straight to Caieta's bay his bark he steered : 
There rode his anchored galleys fast to shore. 1028 



230 



INDEX 



PRINCIPAL PROPER NAMES OCCURRING 
IN THIS VOLUME.* 



Troy is otherwise called Ilium or Ilion, from Etas, one of its 

early kings ; and Pergamus, from its citadel. 
The Trojans are called Dardans, from Dardanus, their founder ; 

Teucrians, from Teucer, a king of Phrygia ; and Phrygians. 
Italy is called also Hesperia and Ausonia. 
The Greeks are called Argives, Achaeans, Pelasgians, or Dorians. 



Acestes, king of a portion of Sicily, of Trojan descent on his 
mother's side, a friend of yEneas. 

Achates, a Trojan, the faithful friend and counsellor of /Eneas. 

Achilles, son of Peleus, the most formidable of the Greek war- 
riors against Troy. He was born at Phthia, in Thessaly. 

* The idea of this Index, as a substitute for foot-notes, as well as some of 
the descriptions it contains, I have taken the liberty to borrow from the 
Translation of Virgil published by the Rev. Rann Kennedy and Mr C. R. 
Kennedy. 



» 



INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 23 1 

Actium, a town and promontory of Epirus, famous for the naval 

victory of Augustus over Anthony ; now Azio. 
Adrashis, a king of Argos, friend and ally of Theseus. He is 

said to have died of grief for the death of his son ^Egialeus. 
sEolus, God of the Winds. His kingdom was called ^Eolia, 

— now the Lipari Islands — between Italy and Sicily. 
Aga??iemnon i king of Mycenae and Argos, and brother of Mene- 

laus. They are commonly described by Virgil as the " Atri- 

dae," or two sons of Atreus. 
Agathyrsi, a people of Scythia. 

Agenor, a king of Phoenicia, son of Neptune and Libya. 
Ajax. There were two Grecian heroes of this name who fought 

against Troy ; one, the son of Telamon — the other the son of 

Oileus, king of Locris. 
Alba Loiiga, a city of Latium, supposed to have been built by 

Ascanius, the son of yEneas. Destroyed by the Romans 665 

B.C. 

Alcides, the patronymic of Hercules, who was grandson of Al- 
caeus. 

Alcnusna, wife of Amphitryon, a prince of Thebes, and the 
mother of Hercules. 

Alfikeiis, a river of Elis, in Peloponnessus. He was said to have 
been enamoured of the nymph Arethusa, who, being changed 
into a fountain, he pursued her under the sea till she rose in 
Ortygia, an island near Sicily. 

Amnion or Hammon, the name under which Jupiter was wor- 
shipped in Libya. 

Androgeos, son of Minos of Crete. He was assassinated by 
order of ^Egeus, king of Athens. This led to a war between 
those countries, which ended in a treaty binding yEgeus to 
send every year seven boys and girls of Athens to Crete to be 
devoured by the Minotaur. See Minos. 

Andro??iacke, the wife of Hector ; after his death, carried 
off to Epirus by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles. He afterwards 
discarded her, and she became the wife of Helenus, a son 
of Priam. 

Arcturus, a star near the tail of the Great Bear, whose rising 
and setting were supposed to indicate tempests. 



232 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 

Arethusa. See Alpheus. 

Ascanius, son of ^Eneas and Creusa, otherwise called lulus. 

Assaracus, a Trojan prince, son of Tros, father of Capys, who 
was father of Anchises. The Trojans are from him called the 
children of Assaracus. 

Astyanax, son of Hector and Andromache. At the fall of Troy, 
being then a child, he is supposed to have been put to death 
by Ulysses. 

Atlas, one of the Titans, king of Mauritania. It was fabled 
that he was changed into a mountain of Africa, so high that 
it supported the skies. Hence he is represented as sustain- 
ing the globe upon his shoulders. 

Aulis, a town of Bceotia, where the Greek chieftains assembled 
for their expedition against Troy. 

Avernus, a lake of Campania in Italy, close to Puteoli, which , 
on account of the dark woods that surrounded it, and its 
sulphureous exhalations, was believed to be the entrance to 
the infernal regions. 

B 

Bebrycii, a people of Bithynia in Asia Minor. 

Belus, son of Neptune and Libya, twin brother of Agenor, and 
father of ^Egyptus and Danaus. Pie was regarded as the an- 
cestral hero and national divinity of several eastern nations. 

Berecynthia, a name given to Cybele, the mother of the Gods, 
from Mount Berecynthus in Phrygia, where she was wor- 
shipped. 

Brutus, Lucius Junius, the first Consul of Rome, and father of 
the Republic, who avenged the outrage done to Lucretia, 
expelled the Tarquins, and caused his two sons to be put to 
death for attempting to restore that dynasty. 

Byrsa, a citadel of Carthage, so called from a Greek word sig- 
nifying a hide. 

C 

Calchas, a celebrated soothsayer, son of Nestor, who accom- 
panied the Greeks to Troy. 

Camillus, one of the great heroes of the Roman Republic, cele- 
brated for his glorious repulse of the Gauls before Rome. 



I 



INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 233 

Cassandra, a daughter of Priam, remarkable for her gift of pro- 
phecy, and for the unbelief with which her predictions were 
received. 

Celceno, the queen of the Harpies, who inhabited the islands 
called Strophades, in the Ionian Sea. 

Centaurs, a tribe of Thessaly, said to have been half-men, half- 
horses, an idea probably derived from their skill in horseman- 
ship. 

Ceraunia, mountains of Epirus. 

Chaonia, part of Epirus, so called from Chaon, a son of Priam. 

Charybdis, a whirlpool on the coast of Sicily. See Scylla. 

Chimcera, a fabulous monster, with the fore part of a lion, the 
middle of a goat, and the hinder parts of a dragon. From its 
mouth it spouted forth flames. 

Circe, a sorceress supposed to be able to transform men into 
beasts. The island of ^£a, near Cumse in Italy, was re- 
puted to be her abode. 

Cithceron, a mountain of Bceotia. 

Clarian, Apollo was so called from Clarus, in Ionia, where he 
had an oracle. 

Corybantes, priests of Cybele, who beat cymbals at her festivals, 
and behaved as if delirious. They were reputed to have in- 
habited Mount Ida, and from thence to have removed into 
Crete. 

Corytus, supposed to have been the father of Dardanus, the 
founder of Cory thus (Cortona). 

Cossus Cornelius, Consul, B.C. 428, who killed Lar Tolumnius, 
the king of the Veii, in single combat, and dedicated his spoils 
in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. 

Creiisa, daughter of Priam, and the first wife of ^Eneas. 

Crinisus, a river of Sicily. 

Cumce, the place where ^Eneas landed in Italy, and one of the 
most ancient of its towns. It was situated north-west of the 
Bay of Naples, in the neighbourhood of Baiae and Puteoli. 
The famous Sibyl's cave was here, and a magnificent temple 
of Apollo. 

Cybele, the mother of the Gods. 

Cyclades, a cluster of islands in the ^-Egean Sea. 



234 



INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 



Cyclops, fabulous one-eyed giants, who inhabited the neighbour- 
hood of Mount yEtna, and feasted on human flesh. See 
Polyphemus. 

Cyllene, a mountain of Arcadia, the supposed birthplace of Mer- 
cury, who was hence called Cyllenius. 

Cyntkus, a mountain of Delos, the reputed birthplace of Apollo 
and Diana. 

Cytkera, an island near Peloponnessus, sacred to Venus, who was 
hence called Cytherea, and was believed to have arisen from 
the sea near its coast. 

D 

Dcedalus, a celebrated artist and mechanician of Athens, the 
author of many wonderful inventions. Amongst others he is 
reported to have made himself wings, by which he flew through 
the air from Crete to Cumae ; but his son Icarus, who accom- 
panied him, perished in the attempt. 

Decii. Three of that family — grandfather, father, and son — were 
illustrious as consuls and generals of the Roman common- 
wealth, and at successive periods devoted themselves to death 
on the field of battle, to insure victory to their countrymen. 

Deiphobus, one of the sons of Priam and Hecuba. He married 
Helen after the death of Paris, but was betrayed by her to 
Menelaus, who cruelly mutilated and killed him. 

Dictcean, another name for Cretan — from Dicte, a mountain in 
Crete. 

Bis, another name for Pluto, God of Hell. 

Bodona, in Epirus. It was the seat of a famous oracle of 
Jupiter. 

Bolopians, a people of Thessaly, who went under Phoenix to 
the Trojan war. 

Brepanum, a town on the coast of Sicily, now Trapani. 

Brusi, father and son of the same names (M. Livius Drusus), 
were famous generals and statesmen of the Roman common- 
wealth. 

Dryads, wood-nymphs. 

Dryopes, a people of Greece, near Mount ^Eta, in Thessaly. 

Didichhim, an island of the Ionian Sea. 



a 



INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 235 

E 

Electra, mother of Dardanus, founder of Troy, by Jupiter. 

Elissa, another name for Dido. 

Emathia, an ancient name for Macedonia and Thessaly. Ema- 

thian is an epithet given to Achilles on account of his Thessal- 

ian birth. 
Eridanus, the Greek name for the River Po. 
Erymanthus, a mountain of Arcadia. Hercules slew a famous 

boar which infested it. 
E?yx, a hero of Sicily, reputed son of Venus. He was killed in 

a boxing match by Hercules, and gave his name to Mount 

Eryx in Sicily. 
Eurotas, a river of Thessaly, near Mount Olympus. 
Euryalus, a beautiful Trojan youth, beloved by Nisus. See 

Nisus. 

F 

Fabius Maximus, mentioned in the 6th .Eneid, one of the many 
members of the Gens Fabia, who acquired renown by their 
services to the Republic, conducted the wars against Hannibal 
with great skill and address. From his cautious tactics he 
was surnamed Cunctator. 

Fabricius, one of the most popular heroes in the Roman annals, 
celebrated for his simplicity and incorruptibility of character. 
Being sent ambassador to Tarentum in the war against Pyr- 
rhus, he withstood all the tempting offers of that monarch. 
He was censor in 275 B.C., and distinguished himself by the 
severity with which he strove to repress the growing taste for 
luxury. 

Fauns, rural deities worshipped by the country folk, having the 
feet of goats, with human bodies. 

G 

Gcetulia, a wild country of Africa, bordering on the Garaman- 

tians. 
Ganymede, a beautiful Trojan youth, who was reputed to have 

been carried up to heaven, where he was made cup-bearer to 

Jupiter. 



236 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 

Garamantians, a people in the inland parts of Africa. 

Geryon, a fabulous monster of Gades (Cadiz), represented as 

having three heads and three bodies. He was destroyed by 

Hercules. 
Glaucus, a Sea- God. Also a Lycian prince, killed in the Trojan 

war. 
Gnossus, a town of Crete, whence the Cretans were called 

Gnossians. 

H 

Hcemus, a chain of mountains in the north of Thrace. 

Harpalyce, a female warrior of Thrace. 

Hebrus, a river of Thrace. 

Hecate, the same as Proserpine. The same Goddess was Luna 

in Heaven, Diana upon Earth, and Hecate or Proserpine in 

Hell. 
Hecuba, wife of Priam. 
Helenus, a son of Priam, celebrated for the gift of prophecy. 

After the fall of Troy he was carried by Pyrrhus to Epirus, 

and on the death of that prince succeeded to his throne, and 

married the widowed Andromache. 
Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen. She was first 

married to Pyrrhus, son of Achilles ; but her cousin Orestes, 

who had been pre-engaged to her, slew Pyrrhus, and became 

her second husband. 
Hesperia, another name for Italy. 

Hyades, a constellation whose rising and setting portended rain. 
Hyrcania, a country of Asia, at the north of Parthia, abounding 

in wild beasts and serpents. 

I 
Icarus. See Dcedalus. 
Ida, a celebrated mountain of Troas, where Paris adjudged the 

prize of beauty to Venus. There was another mountain of the 

same name in Crete. See Corybantes. 
Idomeneus, a king of Crete, who fought before Troy. On his 

return he came to Italy, and founded a city on the coast of 

Calabria, which he called Salentum. 



INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 237 

Illyricitm, a country bordering on the Adriatic Sea, opposite 

Italy. 
Iphitus, a Trojan warrior, killed at the sack of Troy. 
Iris, the rainbow. She was reputed to be the handmaid and 

messenger of Juno, and one of her offices was to cut the thread 

on which hung the life of mortals. 
lulus. See Ascanius. 
Ixion, one of the tortured souls in Hell, who was punished by 

being affixed to a wheel, which perpetually turned round. 

His crime was an attempt to seduce Juno. 



Lacinium, a promontory in the south of Italy, where Juno La- 

cinia had a magnificent temple. 
Laodamia, the wife of Protesilaus, celebrated for her devoted 

love to her husband. 
Laomedon, son of Ilus, king of Troy. With the aid of Apollo 

and Neptune he built the walls of Troy. He was put to death 

for a breach of faith by Hercules. The Trojans are sometimes 

called after his name, Sons of Laomedon. 
Lapithce, a tribe of Thessaly, celebrated for their horsemanship. 
Larissa, a town of Thessaly. Hence Achilles is called Laris- 

saeus. 
Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana. 
Lavinium, a town of Italy, founded by zEneas, the capital of 

Latium. 
Leda, the mother of Helen of Troy. 
Lerna, a country of Argolis, where Hercules killed the famous 

Hydra. 
Liburnians, a people of Illyricum, now Croatia. 
Libya, a part of Africa, for which the name is often used as a 

synonym. 
Lilybceinn, a promontory of Sicily, now Boco, with a town of the 

same name, now Marsala. 
Lymes, a surname of Bacchus. 
Lycia, a country of Asia Minor, where Apollo had a celebrated 

oracle. 



238 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 



M 

Mceotis Palus, now the Sea of Azof. 

Marcellus, the two persons of that name referred to in the 6th 
yEneid are : 1. Claudius Marcellus, conqueror of Syracuse, 
and five times Consul. Having slain Britomartus, king of 
the Gauls, in single combat, he dedicated his spoils to Jupiter 
Feretrius, the third and last instance in Roman history in 
which such an offering was made. 2. The younger Marcel- 
lus was the son of Octavia, sister of Augustus, and born B.C. 
43. Augustus adopted him as his son, gave him his daughter 
Julia in marriage, and is believed to have designed to make 
him his successor ; but being seized with a disease at Baiae, he 
was cut off by death in his 20th year. He was considered to 
have given so much promise of future excellence that his end 
was mourned as a public calamity. His funeral oration was 
pronounced by Augustus himself, who also richly rewarded 
Virgil for the beautiful tribute to his memory at the close of 
the 6th ^Eneid. 

Marpessus, a mountain in the island of Paros, from whence the 
celebrated marble was obtained. 

Massy/a, in Africa, a part of Mauritania near Mount Atlas. 

Melibcea, a town on the coast of Thessaly, famous for the dye of 
wool. 

Memnon, son of Tithonus and Aurora. He came to assist 
Priam in the defence of Troy, and was slain by Achilles. 

Minos, an ancient king and lawgiver of Greece, who for his wis- 
dom and justice was made judge of the departed spirits in the 
infernal regions. His f son, the second Minos, had a wife 
named Pasiphae, who, indulging an unnatural passion, gave 
birth to a monster called the Minotaur. This was confined 
by Minos in the famous Labyrinth of Crete, constructed by 
Daedalus. Minos exacted from the Athenians, whom he had 
vanquished in war, a yearly tribute of seven youths to be de- 
voured by the Minotaur. The monster was at last destroyed 
by Theseus, who penetrated the Labyrinth with a clue fur- 
nished to him by Daedalus at the request of Ariadne the king's 
daughter. 



INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 



239 



i 



Musgus, one of the most ancient of the Greek poets, whose 
compositions are now lost. 

My cents, a city of Argolis, in the Peloponnessus, of which Aga- 
memnon, at the time of the Trojan war, was king. 

Myrmidons, a people on the southern borders of Thessaly, who 
followed Achilles to the Trojan war. 

N 

Naiads and Nereids, nymphs of the sea. 

Narycia, a town in the south of Italy built by the Locrians, who, 

on their return from Troy, were shipwrecked on the Italian 

coast. 
Neoptolemus. See Pyrrhus. 

Nisus, a Trojan celebrated for his devoted friendship to Euryalus. 
Nomads, a name given to the pastoral tribes who wandered from 

place to place without settled habitation. 
Numidians, a name derived from the above. They were a 

people of Africa, bordering on the Gcetulians and Mauritanians. 
Xysa, a town of Ethiopia, sacred to the God Bacchus, who was 

fabled to have been brought up there. 

O 

CEnotria, a name given by the Greeks to Italy. 

Olympus, a mountain of Thessaly, whose summit was repre- 
sented by the poets to be the abode of the Gods. Jupiter is 
hence called Olympian. 

Orcus, the infernal regions, including both Elysium, the region 
of the blessed, and Tartarus, the place of punishment. 

Oreads, mountain-nymphs. 

Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. He avenged 
the murder of his father by killing his mother and her par- 
amour ^Egistheus, and as a consequence of his crime was 
haunted by the Furies. 

Orion, a constellation composed of seventeen stars in the form 
of a man bearing a sword. The rising of Orion was supposed 
to portend rain and storm. 

Orpheus, a mythical personage, regarded by the Greeks as the 
most celebrated of the pre- Homeric poets. It was fabled of 



240 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 

him that having lost his wife Eurydice by death, he went 
down into the infernal regions, and by the charms of his lyre 
prevailed upon Pluto to release her ; but at the moment when 
he was about to pass the boundary of the lower world, he 
could not refrain from looking back to see if his wife was fol- 
lowing him, and beheld her caught back again into the place 
from which he had rescued her. 
Ortygia, a small island in the bay of Syracuse, where rose the 
fountain Arethusa. 



Pachynus, a promontory of Sicily, now Passaro. 

Pala??iedes, a Grecian chief, son of Nauplius, king of Eubaea. 
He joined the expedition against Troy. In revenge for an 
injury suffered at his hands, Ulysses devised a crafty plot, 
whereby Palamedes was unjustly sentenced and put to death 
by the Greek princes, on the pretext of a traitorous correspond- 
ence with Priam. 

Palinurus, the pilot of ^Eneas, who fell overboard into the sea 
near Velia, on the coast of Italy, and was murdered there by 
the inhabitants. The promontory now called Palinuro was 
named after him. 

Palladium, a celebrated statue of Minerva, supposed to have 
fallen from Heaven. It was believed that on its preservation 
depended the safety of Troy. Ulysses and Diomed entered 
the city by night and carried it away, to the great displeasure 
of the Goddess. 

Panopea, one of the Nereids. 

Parthenoptzus, one of the seven heroes who engaged in the cele- 
brated expedition against Thebes, where he was slain. 

Pasiphae. See Minos. 

Patavitwi, a city of Italy on the shores of the Adriatic, now 
Padua. 

Pelops, a son of Tantalus, king of Phrygia, who gave his name 
to Peloponnessus (the Morea). He was the father of Atreus, 
and founder of the famous dynasty which long held sway over 
the peninsula. 

Pelorus, a promontory of Sicily, now Cape Faro. 



INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 



241 



PenthesileO) queen of the Amazons and daughter of Mars. Slain 
by Achilles at Troy. 

Petilia, an Italian town, built by Philoctetes on his return from 
the Trojan war. 

PJuzdra, the wife of Theseus, and step-mother of Hippolytus, for 
whom she conceived a criminal passion. 

Phineus, a king of Thrace, who was persecuted by the Harpies, 
until they were driven away to the Strophad Islands. 

Phlegethon, the fiery river of Hell. 

Pklegyas, son of Ares and Chryse. He set fire to the temple of 
Apollo, and for this offence was sentenced to severe punish- 
ment in the lower regions. 

Phthia, a town of Thessaly, the birthplace of Achilles. 

Pirithous, a son of Ixion, and king of the Lapithae. He was the 
intimate friend of Theseus, and the two undertook to go down 
to the infernal regions and carry away Proserpine, but were 
defeated in this attempt by her consort Pluto. For this out- 
rage they were sentenced to a cruel punishment in the infernal 
regions. 

Pollux, a son of Leda, and twin brother of Castor. It was fabled 
that from his devoted affection to his brother, who was killed 
in war, he prayed Jove to be allowed to share his fate, and it 
was decreed that each should alternately pass one day in 
Hades, and the next in Heaven. 

Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops who lived near Mount iEtna, 
a ferocious giant and cannibal, whose eye Ulysses put out in 
revenge for the slaughter of his companions. 

Portunus, the Latin name for the Sea -God Palaemon. He 
was so called from his speeding ships into port. 

Priam, the last king of Troy, husband of Hecuba. Slain at 
the sack of that city by Pyrrhus. 

Pyrrhus — otherwise called Neoptolemus — the son of Achilles. 



i 



R 

Rhadamanthns, a son of Jupiter, born in Crete. He reigned 
with so much equity and firmness that he was reputed to have 
been made, with Minos, one of the judges of the dead in the 
infernal regions. 

VOL. I. Q 



242 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 

Rhesus, a Thracian prince, who came to Troy as an ally of Priam. 
There was a prophecy that Troy should never be taken if 
his horses should drink the waters of the river Xanthus ; but 
he was slain, and his horses were carried away by Ulysses and 
Diomed on the first night of his arrival. 

Rhodope, a mountain of Thrace. 

Rhceteum, a promontory on the Mysian coast, near Troy. 

S 

Salentum. See Idomeneus. 

Salmoneus, a king of Elis, who after his death was sentenced to 
eternal torture in Tartarus for his presumption in imitating 
thunder and lightning by the sound of his chariot rattling over 
a brazen bridge, and by the brandishing of torches. 

Samos, an island in the ^Egean Sea, where Juno had a magnifi- 
cent temple. 

Saturn, the father of Jupiter. Being driven from his throne by 
his son, he took refuge in Italy, where he reigned over Latium, 
which enjoyed under him such prosperity that the period is 
described by the poets as the golden age. 

Saturnia, a name given to Juno as daughter of Saturn. 

Sccean, the name of one of the gates of Troy. 

Scamande?', a river of Troas, otherwise called Xanthus. 

Scylaceum, a town of the Bruttii in Italy — the modern Squillaci. 

Scylla, a dangerous rock on the Italian coast, opposite to an 
equally dangerous whirlpool, called Charybdis, on the Sicilian 
side. The navigation between the two was so difficult that it 
passed into a proverb. According to the poets, Scylla was a 
sea-monster, her upper parts those of a woman, with barking 
monsters like dogs below her waist ; the legend being probably 
derived from the roaring of the waters at the foot of the rocks. 

Scyros y a rocky island in the y£gean Sea, near Eubcea. 

Serra7tus, a surname given to C. Atilius Regulus, Consul, B.C. 
257, said to be derived from the circumstance of his being 
engaged in sowing his land when the news was brought to him 
of his elevation to the consulship. 

Sicanians, another name for the people of Sicily. 

Simois, a river of Troas, which falls into the Xanthus. 



1 



i 



INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 243 

Strophades, islands in the Ionian Sea ; the fabled abode of the 

Harpies. 
Strymon, a river of Thrace. 
Syrtes, large sandbanks in the Mediterranean, near the coast of 

Africa. 

T 

Tarentuvi, a town and harbour of Calabria, now Tarento. 

Tartarus. See Orcus. 

Theseus, a celebrated king and hero of Athens. Among his 
other exploits he is reputed to have gone down to Hell with 
his friend Pirithous to carry off Proserpine. Their attempt 
was defeated by Pluto, and Theseus was sentenced to sit for 
ever chained to a huge stone. 

T/iy?nbra, a place in Troas where Apollo was worshipped. 

Timavus, a broad river of Italy, which issues from a mountain 
north-east of Aquileia, and falls with nine separate streams 
into the Adriatic. 

Tisiphone, one of the Furies. 

Titans, the sons of Coelus and Terra (Heaven and Earth), a 
family of giants, who were said to have made war against 
Saturn, the father of Jupiter. Of these Virgil mentions by 
name Aloeus, Coeus, Enceladus, Tityus, &c. They are repre- 
sented as sentenced, for their rebellion against Heaven, to an 
eternity of suffering in the infernal regions. 

Titkouus, son of Laomedon, king of Troy, said to have been the 
husband of Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn. He w T as the 
father of Memnon, who came to assist Priam, and was slain 
by Achilles. 

Torquatus, Titus Manlius, a famous warrior and dictator of 
Rome, who sentenced his son Titus Manlius to death for 
having violated the orders of the consuls by engaging in single 
combat with one of the enemy in the Latin war. 

Trinacria, a Greek name for Sicily, derived from its three pro- 
montories — Lilyboeum, Pachynus, and Pelorus. 

Triton, a Sea-God, son of Neptune, generally represented as 
blowing a shell. 

Trivia, a name given to Diana, because she was worshipped at 
places where three roads met. 



244 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 

Troilus, one of the sons of Priam slain by Achilles. 
Tydides, a patronymic of Diomed, son of Tydeus, who was the 
son of CEneus^king of Calydon. 



Velia, a city of Lucania in the south of Italy, near to which Pali- 
nurus, the pilot of ^Eneas, lost his life. 

X 

Xanthus, a river of Troas, the same as Scamander. There was 
another river of the same name in Lycia, sacred to Apollo. 

Z 

Zacynthus, one of the Ionian Islands, now Zante. 



THE END. 



PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. EDINBURGH. 






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